


It Was Never Quite Like This Before

by austinendstheworld



Category: IT (1990), IT (2017), IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - After College/University, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Denial of Feelings, F/M, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Memory Loss, Mostly Fluff, Rated T for cussing and Richie's constant innuendos, Richie tozier is a huge sap, Stan and Richie are best friends, my best attempt at no angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-26 16:32:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17145227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/austinendstheworld/pseuds/austinendstheworld
Summary: Richie Tozier fell in love and then forgot all about it.Or, Richie remembers his life in Derry, but mostly only the good parts.





	It Was Never Quite Like This Before

**Author's Note:**

> Written for honkhonkrichard on tumblr for It secret santa. It was supposed to be waaayyyyy shorter, but it kind of got away from me. I only finished writing it today so there was no time to have it beta read or edit anything major, but I tried and if I find the time I might go back and fix some minor errors later. As far as responding to prompts, I wanted to write a fic that emphasized Stan and Richie's friendship as adults. It also miigghht have the teensiest bit of angst because I don't know how to write anything else but I swear I tried my very best to make it happy and there is 100% a happy ending and all of the losers are happy or are going to be soon in this au. I really hope anyone who reads this enjoys and also has a good holiday season <3

“Stanley, dude, you’ve gotta calm down,” Richie was trying to sound firm and reassuring, but the fact that his mouth was half-full of Doritos was somewhat ruining the effect.

Stan was currently pacing tight circles around the living room of the apartment that he and Richie shared. With each lap, he found some new trinket or picture frame to attempt to straighten. He’d fiddle with the item for thirty seconds or so before becoming frustrated from the certainty that it could never be put back in its proper place and then went back to pacing and fidgeting with his hands. “I am calm,” Stan said, but it sounded like he had given up on convincing Richie and was saying it as a last-ditch effort to try and delude himself. “This is a good thing. It’s  _ supposed  _ to be a good thing. I just have to figure out how to not, you know, ruin everything.”

Richie rolled the bag of doritos shut and set it aside on the coffee table. He and Stan had been best friends for as long as he could remember, so he was painfully aware of the fact that a panicked Stanley was a horrible omen. “If it’s good news then why can’t you tell me what it is already instead of walking around looking like you haven’t taken your anxiety meds in a month and someone just told you they need you to defuse a bomb?”

“It’s about me and Patty,” He said, trying to get it all out in one quick exhale.

Richie’s first instinct was to worry Stan and his girlfriend were going to split up, but the thought didn’t stay long. For one thing, Stanley was pacing, not crying. For another, Stan and Patty were all but a fairy tail romance, they were a dream couple, the envy of their entire class. He refused to believe that a relationship like theirs would just  _ end  _ so abruptly. Stan and Patty had something special with each other, and both of them were too smart to risk throwing that away without a good reason. “What about you and Patty?”

Stan came to and abrupt stop in his pacing. Instead of responding with words, he brought his hands up to his face and groaned.

_ Yikes. _

“What, did she say she finally wants to go to third base? You scared of what her reaction will be when she finds out you have a micro-penis?” Richie knew that his humor wouldn’t be appreciated, but when it came to coping with anything even remotely serious, he was kind of a one-trick pony.

“No,” Stan replied, his voice muffled because he still had his hands over his face. “I was actually worried she’d want to report me to the police for killing my roommate in cold blood, but I think once I tell her you said that to me, she’ll understand.”

_ If he’s threatening to kill me, things can’t have gone too wrong,  _ Richie reasoned with himself. “As my dying wish, can I get you to tell me what’s gotten your panties in such a twist?”

“I…” Stan dug into his pocket and produced a silver ring, which he held out to Richie on his palm.

Rich immediately snatched it up. “For me? Oh Stanny, you shouldn’t h-- w--wait a fucking minute. Is this supposed to be an engagement ring?”

Stan flushed. “I know engagement rings are supposed to have diamonds on them, but since I’m still in school and all that was a bit out of my budget. I figured this would be a good enough placeholder until I can get her something nicer. And that if I never have enough money to get her a nicer one then it can at least be distinct like, silver for our engagement and gold for… for our…”

“For your wedding?” Richie couldn’t tear his eyes off of the ring. It was simple, but still distinct and elegant. Lines of silver swam over each other and formed a more decorative and sturdy band. Everything about it seemed to scream that it was Stanley’s taste. Richie knew that Patty was going to love it. 

Stanley just groaned again.

“Stan, you do know getting married is a voluntary thing here, right? Like, unless the mob is forcing you to pursue Patty romantically, you can wait until you’re older, like until the idea of it isn’t enough to send you into some sort of panic?” Even saying that Stan might get married was throwing Richie off. The two of them were only seniors in college. Richie couldn’t imagine being ready to settle down.

“I know I don’t have to, Richie. I  _ want  _ to. That’s what’s getting to me. I want this more than I’ve ever wanted anything else. I-- I see Patty, and I just know I want her to be it for me. She’s beautiful, and I’ve been in love with her for a long time, but it isn’t even about that. I sleep better when I’m sharing a bed with her. I’ve started expecting her to be there when I wake up, I’ll turn over, and if she isn’t there, if I can’t brush her hair out of her face and listen to the way she murmurs in her sleep, I feel this pang, like something has gone so wrong in my life it can’t ever be fixed. It’s little stuff, like seeing her toothbrush left on the bathroom counter and putting it back into the holder for her and feeling affectionate instead of annoyed. But it’s also big things. It’s knowing I can tell her everything, and wanting to so badly that I get angry at myself when there’s something I can’t seem to remember, like I want her to know things about me that even I don’t know. And when she’s hurt, the way her voice falls makes me stronger, strong enough to be able to do whatever I might have to to fix things for her. But it’s not even that, it’s the way she lays my head down in her lap when I’m not feeling well, and runs her hands through my hair and comforts me. It’s that when I look up at her in those times I can see in her eyes that she’d do anything for me. It’s that I want to give her the world but if I tried to I know she’d refuse it because she wants to give the world to me. It’s that, when I try to imagine a life without her, I can’t come up with one that feels livable. She keeps me calm like no one else. Hell, even when she annoys me half to death it feels special because there’s no one else I’d rather be annoyed by, because even when she’s just there to nag about something, she’s  _ there.  _ And, she doesn’t, like, complete me or anything, I feel like the idea that people are incomplete and need a romantic partner to make them whole or something is unhealthy, but, she completes my  _ life.  _ Like, I’ve always had things in life that I wanted for myself, but now there’s all these things that I want for her, and for us, and they’re even more important than any of the shit I ever wanted for me.”

“Well, shit, Stanley, I had no idea you were such a poet. You’ve been spending too much time around--” he fumbled for a name, he  _ hated  _ when this happened, and the fact that it happened all the time, especially around Stan, was enough to almost scare him-- “around english majors,” he finished, thoroughly unsatisfied. 

“I’ve just never  _ felt  _ like this before, Richie,” Stan said, collapsing into an armchair.

Suddenly, Richie was somewhere else. He could feel sunlight tingling on his skin. Hear a light brush of metal against concrete, a broken bicycle chain dragging on the sidewalk. There was a hand next to his, steadying the direction of the handle bars as they walked together. “I have,” he said, almost without hearing it. 

Stan’s face fell into a frown. “Richie, please don’t tell me you’re going back to moping over Sandy again.”

“No, god no,” Richie said. Sandy had been his first and only long-term relationship. The whole thing had blown up in his face junior year when Sandy had decided she was going to transfer and Richie decided he didn’t want to go with her. The whole thing had left him a little bit of a wreck for awhile, but in the end he came away feeling it was for the best. He and Sandy had worked well together, but at the end of the day, they were only content with one another and not truly happy. “There was someone else--” Richie wracked his memory again, but was no more successful that time. “There was someone a long time ago…”

“A long time ago, like, back when we were kids?”

_ Summer. A long time ago back when it was summer and we would scavenge for spare change until we had enough to get double scoop ice cream cones down at Freese’s. But then, I’d be so busy talking to you non-stop that mine would start to melt, letting ice cream drip down my hands, and they would be sticky for the rest of the day and I’d keep finding excuses to grab at you with them, to pinch your cheek or steady your elbow. It would drive you  _ crazy.  _ Especially since you always had hand sanitizer on you. You’d chase after me with that, or sometimes wet wipes, yelling at the top of your lungs about the importance of keeping your hands clean to maintain good hygiene, as well as to prevent the spread of illness. Eventually I would relent because you insisted on cleaning my disgusting hands yourself, holding them in place with one hand while recressly scrubbing and disinfecting with the other. I learned that sometimes, not often, but sometimes, if my hands were clean you would let me hold yours.  _

__ “Yeah. Kids, or teenagers or whatever. Back when we lived in Maine.”

“I thought you barely remembered anything about back then. I know I don’t.”

“I don’t either.”  _ Summer. Melted ice cream. Band-aids. Band-aids being used as tape to try and mend my forever-broken glasses. Why the fuck do you have a thousand band-aids in that thing but no scotch tape? _

“Then how do you know you--?”

“Look, it doesn’t matter,” Richie shook his head. “Water under the bridge--”  _ The kissing bridge, the kenduskeag-- _ “This is about you, Stanley the manly, not me,” Richie said, both because he was trying to be a good friend and because he was now thoroughly disconcerted by whatever it was that was going on in his head. He slipped into his best mafia voice, which, while better than it was when he was a child, was still not very good. “This is about you, you slimy Jew, gettin’ to thinkin’ you’re good enough to marry my daughta.”

Stanley half-smiled. “I think you nearly went a whole week without calling me a Jew this time. Almost forgot I was Jewish.”  

Richie went back to his normal voice. “Look, Stanny, I love you, but you can’t just go and kill Christ and then expect me to forgive and forget.”

Stan rolled his eyes and then held his hand out to Richie. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll keep that in mind for next time. Now can I have my ring back?”

Rich gave the ring a final once-over before dropping that into Stanley’s open palm. “So, you’re really doing this, huh? Popping the question? Most guys would pop a girl’s che--”

“Beep beep, Richard,” he huffed. “Though, I suppose I don’t know what else I should’ve expected from you.”

“Stan. You and Patty are amazing together. You basically just did an impromptu speech about how crazy you are about her. I don’t know of any reason why she wouldn’t say yes.”

“But that’s the thing, Rich, I don’t know whether she’s going to say yes or not.”

Richie went forward with as much caution as he could muster. He knew about as much as he could about Stanley’s uncanny (if not downright impossible) knowledge of things, considering that Stan had all but forbidden it as a conversation topic. “You mean you don’t  _ know  _ know?”

Stan swallowed, not meeting Richie’s eyes. “Yeah, that. And it’s fucking ridiculous, too, like, freshman year when you were freaking out about your finals I  _ knew _ you’d pull a C+ in your history class even though you didn’t study for shit. And when I applied for that internship last year I  _ knew  _ I’d get it even though everyone else was sure I wouldn’t make the cut. And when Patty’s kitten got really sick last year I  _ knew  _ he was going to pull through even though the vet suggested putting him down instead of trying to come up with the money for surgery. Hell, some mornings I wake up and I  _ know  _ whether I’ll be able to get away with cutting a certain class. I get to know all of that random bullshit but when I try to figure out whether I’ll be able to convince the love of my life to marry me, nothing! Complete radio silence.”

“You know Stan, most people don’t get psychic messages letting them know how things are gonna turn out. Most people propose without knowing if the other person is gonna say yes.”

“They aren’t  _ psychic messages  _ Richie,  _ please  _ don’t call them that. You make me sound like a crazy person. I just-- most of the time when I’m making a big decision I feel  _ confident _ and right now I don’t. I feel like it could go either way.”

“Well if it makes you feel any better, I’m confident that she’s gonna say yes. And like, even if she said no-- which she won’t, by the way-- but if she did, there’s no way she’d break up with you, she’d just say she wants to wait a bit longer before getting married. And she’d come away with solid proof of how serious you are about her. So I don’t think you can go wrong. I mean, I know we’re still young, but who gives a shit? You love each other. If you want to be with her forever then you should tell her, Stan. She deserves to know. And I can’t imagine her feeling any different from the way you do. She’s gonna say yes.”

“Do you really think so? You’re not just trying to calm me down?”

“I know so, Stan. Besides, we’ve gotta get a catch like you off the market as soon as possible. I can barely get to sleep at night because of the sound of all those nice Jewish girls trying to break down your bedroom door.”

Stan looked down at the ring in his hand. “Thanks, Richie.”

“Do you know how you’re gonna do it yet? Cause you know, Patty is special. She doesn’t want any vanilla shit. So if you need me to jump out of cake in the nude or something, I’ll do it.”

“I think I’ve got that part covered.”

“You mean you’re gonna be the one to jump out of a cake naked? Stan, you can’t! You know the risks! She could be blinded from the sheer trauma of--”

“Oh, shut up already!”

“Fine, fine, I can see my services aren’t wanted here.  _ Needed,  _ almost definitely. But not wanted.”

“I’m taking her out on a date on Friday night. I’ll let you know how it goes.”

“I’ll be sure to keep an ear out for bed creaks accompanied by your extraordinarily feminine moans,” Richie said, standing up and grabbing the bag of chips to put it back in the pantry.

“I wouldn’t expect anything less from you,” Stan deadpanned. “Oh, and Richie?”

“Yeah?”

“I have a feeling if you can find where ever your old cell phone is buried in the storage closet it might help you out with whatever it was you were talking about earlier. About whatever it is you used to have with someone back when we lived in Maine.” 

_ Summer. The sound of cicadas. Skipping stones in the kenduskeag. Whispering over the landline in the middle of the night, planning a sleepover for next week. Catching fireflies in a jar. Letting what might almost be a hundred of them go, all at once. Sitting a little too close on the ledge of the quarry for no good reason. _

“Yeah, I-- I might do that.”

****

 

Richie was covered in dust. Stan and Patty had gotten engaged last week. Everything had gone smoothly in spite of Stan’s worries. Ever since, they had been even more attached at the hip than usual. Stan was over at Patty’s for the third time that week and Richie had made a mental note to himself that he was going to need to find a new roommate once the end of the semester hit. There was no bitterness to the thought, truly. He was happy for Stan, over-the-moon happy. But every time he saw the glint of silver on Patty’s ring finger as she wrapped her arms around Stan’s waist, or noticed the thoughtless comfort in the way Stanley would place a hand at the small of her back, he felt a pang. He felt like a sinkhole had opened up somewhere inside him and it was getting bigger every second, and every sting of jealousy he felt was actually just the feeling of something else crumbling away and falling into that sinkhole. He didn’t want Stan or Patty, or even what it was that they had, truly. He wanted his own thing. His own happiness, his own so-sweet-his-dentist-father-would-disown-him-for-even-being-near-it love story. 

And it would be one thing to have simply not have found the right person yet, but Richie felt that he had. That he had found the love of his life and then they had simply slipped his mind. Was that even possible? He didn’t think Stan would forget about Patty even if he went a hundred years without seeing her. He’d only moved away from Derry four years ago. But now that he was genuinely trying to remember what it had been like for him there, he wasn’t pulling up blanks, exactly-- just pictures so foggy that they were almost indecipherable

He’d thought that not thinking much about the life you had before was a part of growing up and moving away to college. After all, Stan didn’t seem to think about Derry much, either. But was forgetting this much really normal? There was a nagging voice in the back of his head that insisted that it wasn’t. So he found himself doing what Stan had suggested, meaning he was now knee-deep in cardboard boxes and trying his best not to cough to death on the dust. 

_ I’m glad I’m not the one with asthma.  _ He paused. Who did he know who had asthma?

He opened up another box. It was full of some of Stan’s old bird books, ones not deemed precious enough to make his bookshelf. He pushed it aside and opened another.

“Oh, shit!” It was full of some of his old clothes, ones that had finally gotten too small form him. He lifted up a particularly atrocious hawaiian shirt and a plastic blue inhaler clattered out of the front pocket. He frowned down at it.

So, he’d definitely known someone with asthma. Someone he was around often enough, and who he cared about enough to carry a spare inhaler around for. So why couldn’t he remember anything about them? No name, no face. He frowned in concentration.

_ Shhh, it’s okay. Just breathe. Just focus on breathing, that’s it, that’s all you have to do, I’ve got you. One of his hands gets the inhaler from his pocket and holds it in place in the other person’s mouth. Richie triggers it, hears the desperate inhale, and feels it with his other hand, which is tracing small circles on the back of the kid who has asthma. _

Richie quickly puts the shirt and the inhaler back in the box and sets it aside.  _ Phone, Richie, you’re looking for a phone, not traumatic childhood memories. _

But that was just it, wasn’t it? As far as Richie could tell, his childhood wasn’t at all traumatic. He had two parents who loved him the best that they could. They didn’t always know the right thing to do, but they tried. He’d had a gang of friends he ran with who put up with all of his antics. Stan had been one of those friends. He’d been targeted by more than his fair share of bullies, but he’d survived it without any lasting scars. He put his hand on the side of his stomach at the thought of it. His childhood hadn’t been perfect, but what little he remembered of it seemed good. Normal. So what had gone wrong? What was making his stomach turn like this? Was it possibly that he remembered so little because something terrible had happened and he’d blocked it out? He was no psych major, but he’d taken an intro class, so he knew that sometimes happened with trauma victims. But if it was some sort of personal trauma making him forget everything, then Stan wouldn’t have been forgetful too. It didn’t make any sense. 

It was like there was some  _ wall  _ between him and the life he’d had before college. But if there was, it was crumbling, and had been ever since Richie had suddenly recollected this vague notion of having a long lost love. He’d started having dreams of being a kid again. Riding double on a silver bicycle. Playing games in the woods. Watching some old black and white movie about a werewolf and being petrified. Stan was there, and so were others-- five others, he knew instinctively. But in his dreams, none of them had faces or voices or names. He missed them all terribly but had no idea who they were. And he felt that he had been missing them for some time.

He went back at the boxes again. Comic books and no phone. Halloween costumes, and no phone. An old radio, a pair of walkie talkies that certainly didn’t function anymore, and no--

His hand grasped something smooth and rectangular. He pulled it free. He pressed the power button immediately, and his heart almost stopped when the phone didn’t respond. He almost smacked himself on the head.  _ You have to charge it first, genius.  _

He found the charger for it with a little more scrounging and almost tripped over his own legs rushing to the nearest outlet to plug it in. He did a little nervous dance waiting for it to get enough juice to power on. He continued to fidget as he watched the multiple, torturously long power-up screens. And then it was on and he was staring at his lock screen, a picture of someone’s hand holding and ice cream cone piled dangerously high. It wanted a four digit passcode.  _ Shit.  _ He pushed the hint button, praying he hadn’t put ‘your mom’ or something equally unhelpful. It said ‘lucky #’. ‘6969’ Richie entered. Incorrect. ‘4200’ Richie entered. Incorrect. This time the phone told him it would be locked if he had a third unsuccessful attempt.  _ What’s my lucky number? Or, what would it have been, back then? _

He thought back to his friends. The five he couldn’t remember. Was that it, five? No, with him and Stan, there was seven of them.  _ Seven.  _ He just knew it had to be seven. It felt right.

_ Is this what it feels like when Stan knows things? _

Richie entered ‘7777’ and the phone unlocked with a happy little bing. His phone background was a picture of a clearing. He could see six figures spread around it in clusters of three, but they were all far away and facing different directions. Faceless. He knew it was his friends though, his old ones. He was also fairly certain the one farthest to the left was Stan. He smiled. He felt so nostalgic it almost burned. 

_ What now?  _ He scrolled through a page of now-obsolete apps until he spotted his contacts. He started to scroll through them. There were several Alexes. He paused on “Bevvie from t…” He clicked on it, revealing the whole name, “Bevvie from the levy”. He had no idea what that name meant, or who--

_ Beverly. Red hair. A yo-yo. A hand, holding a lit cigarette out to me, fingernails painted black, but chipped. _

“Beverly Marsh,” Richie said for the first time in years. Was she the one he’d be thinking of? She’d been his friend, that much he felt.

He scrolled down, past a ‘Big Bill’. He vaguely remembered one of his childhood friends being a bit chubby, maybe that was him?

Then a Cheryl, which meant nothing to him. Then Dad. Then an ‘Eds’. 

_ The sound of rain beating on a thin roof. A comic book in front of me, the vibrant colors bleached out by the lighting of a cloudy day. Warmth on my right side, a hand comes up and turns the page. Don’t turn the pages so soon Eds, I wasn’t done looking at the pictures. I’m sorry I don’t have ten years to watch you drool over cartoon ladies in spandex, Richie. Aw, don’t be jealous, these gals have nice builds but they’re nowhere near as cute as you. _

Richie remembered the way Eds had punched him in the arm for saying that so clearly that he can almost feel it. He clicked on Ed’s name and copied the number listed into his new phone. His fingers hovered over the call button.

_ I thought you were supposed to be looking for your long-lost love, Richie.  _ Stan’s voice says in his head. 

His thumb pressed the call button. He immediately panicked. He isn’t used to freaking out at the idea of talking to someone-- he’s Richie Tozier, usually people have to  _ beg  _ him to stop talking. 

_ What am I thinking, what am I supposed to say? What if he answers? What if he doesn’t? _

The phone rings once. Richie fidgeted, suddenly unable to stand still. Another ring. 

_ He’s not gonna answer, or if someone does it’s gonna be a stranger, it’s been years there’s no way he has the same-- _

There was a click of the line connected. 

“This is Eddie Kaspbrak speaking, what can I do for you?”

Richie almost laughed. He thought it was just like Eddie to answer the phone so formally. He and Stan were alike in that way. Richie isn’t sure how he knows that, though. He didn’t know Eddie’s last name until he’d heard it just a second ago. He wondered if he’d remembered anything else without realizing it. “Eddie,” he said, grinning around the name.

“Yeah, it’s Eddie. I sort of just said that. Who’s this, exactly?”

Richie almost couldn’t think. There was something so unreal about the moment. But even more than that, there was something desperate about it. He was flooded with so much longing he felt like he needed to sit down. He didn’t even know what it was he wanted exactly-- his childhood back? A reunion with his old friends? Their assurance that it was okay he’d forgotten all about them. “I’m Richie. I mean, it’s me, Eds.”

“Don’t call me that!” A pause. “Oh. I mean, I’m sorry, I didn't mean to snap at you. I don’t know where that came from, honest. But my name’s Eddie, not Eds. Are you sure you don’t have the wrong number or something? I don’t think I know anyone named Richie.”

_ So it isn’t just me and Stan who forgot.  _ “You used to know me, back when we were kids. We were friends--”  _ best friends, I think--  _ “We lived in Derry together.”

“Richie from Derry,” Eddie said, the idea still clearly foreign to him. “Richie…” The other shoe dropped. “Holy shit, Richie  _ Tozier _ ? Don’t tell me that’s you!”

Richie’s smile returned. “The one and only, baby.”

“Christ, it’s been... how many years has it been?”

“I don’t know.” The wrongness of that hangs in the air for a second. “Far too long, sweetness.”

Eddie scoffs. “I see you haven’t changed at all.”

“Well, of course not Eddie Spaghetti, why ruin a good thing?”

“Whatever, asshole, you call me ‘spaghetti’ or ‘cutie’ or ‘Eds’ or any of your terrible old nicknames again and I’m hanging up on you and blocking this number.”

“Aw, Eddie-bear, we both know you love me way too much to do--”

The phone beeped, signaling that Eddie had hung up. Richie gaped, offended one second and paranoid the next.

_ What if he really does block me? What if I end up forgetting all about him again before I even really get a chance to remember? _

The phone started to ring in Richie’s hand. It was a number without a contact name to it, but Richie recognized it as the one he had just put in a few minutes ago.

“You just couldn’t resist me after all, could you?” Richie said, pointedly ignoring the way his heart beat was still a little fast from how worried he’d been just a moment ago.

“Oh, fuck off, Tozier. I’m just curious is all.”

“Well it’s your lucky day darling, I  _ am  _ single. I don’t usually go on dates with men but I suppose I can make an exception if you’re willing to put in a good word with your mother.”

“I’m serious, Rich. What’d you do after high school? After Derry?”

“I mean, I guess the same as anyone else. I moved out and went to college. Stanley Uris is my roommate, I don’t know if you remember him. He’s put up with me for almost four years if you can believe it, which, if you remember anything about him you probably can’t.”

“He was the one with the really curly hair, right? Always dressing like a businessman, even when he was like, ten?”

“Yeah, that’s him. I swear he only decided to study to be an accountant because that’s what everyone always told him he already looked like.”

Eddie laughed softly on the other line, and for some reason making him laugh felt better to Richie then all the times he was in a play and had the entire audience in stitches combined. “So Stan’s an accounting major. That makes sense. What are you studying?”

“I’m doing communications with a minor in theater. I was thinking I’d try and go into the radio business, maybe have a podcast or something.” Richie didn’t really have anything solid mapped out for himself.

“Only you would end up basing your future around the assumption that you’ll be able to meet someone stupid enough to pay you for talking when you’ll gladly do it non-stop for free.”

“Oh, I don’t do it for free anymore Spaghetti Man. In fact, you’re being charged five dollars a minute for this phone call.”

“So your side job is running the worst phone sex hotline imaginable?”

It was Richie’s turn to laugh. “What about you, Eds. Are you in school?”

“Well first and most important thing is about me is that my name is still Eddie because hell hasn’t frozen over. But other than that, it’s pretty much what you’d expect. I’m in school, living in Bangor with-- with some friends. I’m a business major, which is supposedly one of the most versatile degrees, so after graduation I’ll end up doing who-knows-what.”

“Business, huh. I always imagined you’d go into medicine. Probably cause you were always patching me up. Everytime I called you doctor K I’d get the cutest mental image of you in a lab coat.”

“Yeah, well. It’s not like I was actually any good at it. Half the medical stuff I thought I knew was just crazy stuff my mom told me.”

Richie could tell he’d unintentionally broached a sensitive topic. “Well, business will be good, too. You might not look as sexy in a suit as you would in a lab coat but it’ll still get the job done. And this way Stan can help you get away with tax fraud and stuff.”

“It’s a plan,” Richie heard a shout in the background of Eddie’s end of the line. Eddie covered the receiver so that Richie couldn’t make out his answer. “Hey, Rich, it’s been real nice talking to you. It was a nice surprise, really. I’ve got some stuff I have to get done now, though.”

“Yeah, yeah, of course,” Richie said, trying not to feel like a scolded dog. He hesitated-- then went for it. “Could I-- I mean, if it’s okay with you could I maybe call you again sometime? For old time’s sake?”

“Of course,” Eddie said, and Richie hoped that the tone of his voice was actually eager and that he wasn’t just being wishful. “You can even text me if you’re feeling wild. I’m busy with school and I’m sure you are too. The end of the semester is coming up so fast it’s crazy. But I’ll try my best to answer you when I can. It’s weird, I don’t remember you very much but, I feel like I’ve definitely missed talking to you.” 

Richie felt so happy it was almost mournful. “I feel like that too.”

“Alright, then. Bye, Richie, I’ll catch you later.”

“Catch you later.” After Richie hung up, he save the number in his new phone under ‘Eddie Spaghetti’. He set the profile picture as a low quality jpeg of pasta.

 

 

After that, Richie and Eddie talked almost every day. They didn’t always have phone calls, and for some reason the idea of asking Eddie to face time with him made Richie nervous,  but they were texting constantly. Partly because Richie was afraid he’d suddenly forget Eddie again if he wasn’t always in the middle of a conversation with him, but mostly because he genuinely loved talking to him again. Eddie made him laugh constantly, he was just as good at comebacks as Stanley but with a much higher tolerance for Richie’s antics. He was also constantly surprising Richie. Every time he thought he’d come to understand what Eddie was like Eddie would reveal some new aspect of himself that didn’t fit Richie’s assumptions. Like his love of professional baseball and his self-proclaimed junk food addiction, for starters. With every conversation, new details of their childhood came back to them. It was mostly pleasant memories. A few bad times came to Richie’s mind, and most likely to Eddie’s as well but neither of them brought them up. They also never really talked about how or why they both seemed to have forgotten about their childhoods so completely. Richie was too busy being thankful that he’d managed to remember him. 

He became so focused on reconnecting with his long-lost best friend that he almost entirely neglected trying to figure out who he’d been in love with. He was remembering more and more about his life in Derry each day, but it appeared the only girl his own age that he spoke to regularly back then was Beverly Marsh. He remembered admiring her, maybe even adoring her, but no romantic feelings. If he had it right some of the other kids in their friend group had a crush on her, but he and Eddie and Stan didn’t seem to have been among them. 

Stan seemed almost hesitant to help Richie and Eddie dig up their mutual history, but Richie had managed to talk him into a three way call and together they had pieced together the names of the rest of their old friend group. There had been four others. Bill Denbrough, Mike Hanlon, Beverly Marsh, and Ben Hanscom. Richie had been able to find contacts for them all on his old phone (though Ben’s did take awhile because Richie had entirely forgotten about nicknaming him ‘Haystack’) but all of their numbers had long since changed or been disconnected. Stan was still a bit too caught up in his engagement to Patty to think of much else, but Richie and Eddie both agreed they wanted to track down the rest of their old group once they got the time. Rich knew that it probably wouldn’t take much more than a few google and facebook queries, but between the approaching end of his senior year and all the time he spent reconnecting with Eddie it got put on the back burner. 

Now that he remembered he had old friends to miss he found himself missing them dearly every time he found himself with a free moment. There was love for them, but also a lingering sense of unease and wrongness that he didn’t understand. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to. So he threw all of his focus into his school work and his friendships with Stan, Eddie, and Patty. Those things he was sure were good. He figured he was better off remembering things slowly, rebuilding one friendship at a time. And as for the girl he used to be in love with, if they were meant to have anything in the future, it could wait until Richie graduated and had something to show for his life besides a few vague dreams and a significant amount of student loan debt. He told himself he wasn’t as mature as Stan and he wasn’t ready to attempt to jump into something serious based off of some long-repressed whim. And sure he thought about it-- about the mystery girl a lot, but it was mostly curiosity and confusion. Richie was a flirt and had on several occasions inadvertently encouraged others to crush on him, but he himself didn’t catch feelings easily. What he’d felt with Sandy had been rare, but it had only taken a few months post break-up for him to see that it wasn’t love, or at least not the type of love that you needed to end up happily married to someone. He was dying to know what type of girl he’d fallen in love with. He’d talk just about anyone’s ear off, but when it came to choosing friends he was very particular. He had a deep admiration for anyone he spent a significant amount of time with, if Richie considered someone a friend instead of an acquaintance it meant that he truly loved them. 

If he’d loved anyone, they would have to have been his friend first. He’d been shocked when he realized the old object of his affections hadn’t been one of the lucky seven. But he was  _ certain  _ he’d never had romantic feelings for Beverly, and the rest of their group had been boys. Richie had no problem with gay people, he’d befriend them the same as anyone else if they were a good time. He voted in for politicians that supported laws that helped protect LGBT people from hate crimes and give them equal access to adoption. He remembered being particularly happy on the day the supreme court ruled in favor of legalizing gay marriage even though it didn’t affect him personally. But even though something about him (probably his fashion sense or lack thereof) occasionally gave people the wrong idea, he was very much heterosexual. Of course he could appreciate a beautiful guy when he saw one, but he was pretty sure anyone could regardless of sexuality. There’s just a big difference between thinking someone is cute and wanting to date them. So his mystery love must’ve been some girl he befriended separately, maybe when he was a bit older than when the lucky seven first got together.

He told himself he’d remember her when the time was right. Stan had given him some skeptical looks when he’d relayed that, but what did Stan know about the whole thing anyway. It was a hell of a lot easier to remember a friend than it was to remember a potential life partner. One of the things he liked best about Eddie was how easily their friendship seemed to come to the both of them. It was easy for them to talk, for them to make each other laugh, for them to trust each other. It turned out that Eddie and his mother had moved from Derry to Bangor around the time they were juniors in high school, so that was around when they grew apart. They hadn’t talked for nearly six years, but now, only about a month after their cellular reunion, it felt like those six years had never happened. 

Being Eddie’s friend again felt  _ right.  _ It was like Richie had gotten a piece of himself back before he even realized it went missing. He thought he might find five more pieces once he found the time reunite with the rest of his old friends and whoever his mystery love was. But he supposed even if he never managed to reconnect with those others that Eddie and Stan would be enough. Richie wasn’t sure if he believed in soulmates, the whole idea sounded a little too sappy to be true, but he figured if they were real your friends could be soulmates as well as people you were romantically involved with. Richie wouldn’t get a crush on Stan if he were the last person on earth, but he wholeheartedly loved him as a friend and was grateful for the way he’d been there for Richie, especially during these past few years with college going on. Richie didn’t know if he would’ve gotten through everything if he’d been on his own, or with a friend that wasn’t as loyal to him as Stanley was. And Eddie? Eddie was soft but unbreakable at the same time. He pretended to be serious, but could be almost as silly as Richie when it came down to it. He was more than a fun time, though. He cared, as proven by his near-constant habit of worrying about others. He could fall apart sometimes-- Richie hadn’t seen it since they reconnected but remembered enough about how Eddie’s paranoia had sometimes spiked to dangerous levels when they were younger. He’d see brief flashes of memories, of looking into Eddie’s widened eyes, of hearing Eddie’s voice raise in pitch with his mounting panic until he was so worked up he couldn’t breathe and had to use his asperator. But in spite of all of that, even though Eddie’s anxiety meant he probably felt fear and panic more intensely than Richie did most of the time, Eddie was still always ready to put his own feelings aside if someone else needed him. Richie was hard pressed to remember specific incidents of that, but he  _ knew  _ it. Even now, if Richie had a bad day then Eddie didn’t let himself admit if he’d had one. If Richie felt down Eddie always managed to find the energy to cheer him up. He was like Patty in that way. Richie could be good at cheering people up too, but he didn’t put his own emotions aside to do it so much as he buried them. Stanley was great at being a voice of reason, but after a certain point he would reach a level of sadness that kept him from being a help to anyone. The scariest thing about being friends with Stanley was having to see him on the days his own despair seemed to paralyse him. But with Patty in his life, those days didn’t come too often. 

Stan and Eddie seemed similar on the surface level, but once you got to know them better their nuanced differences started to unveil themselves. Where Eddie was anxious, Stan was obsessive. Where Stan wanted order, Eddie wanted cleanliness. Where Stan was parental Eddie was fretful. Where Eddie was sarcastic, Stan was deadpan. Where Eddie feared God, Stan loved him. Where Stanley seemed to know things, Eddie had to pray for them. Where Stan held his own ground, Eddie was likely to need others behind him. But where Stan found his weakest point, Eddie hid a small but brilliant reserve of resilience. Richie would give the world for either of them, but he was-- he felt almost scared that he might start to love Eddie more, almost too much because, they’d only been talking again for a month and already it seemed like if Eddie disappeared again Richie’s whole life might just disappear with it. 

Stanley was his best friend, had been as long as Richie could remember, but he was starting to think that Eddie had been his best friend all those years he couldn’t quite recollect. The thought made him feel guilty but he try to assure himself that a lot of people had more than one best friend. And he wouldn’t love Eddie  _ more,  _ just differently. If Eddie was getting more of his time than Stan right now it was just because the both of them were in the middle of something new and exciting that didn’t involve the other. Not to say that Stan and Patty’s engagement was anything like the revival of Richie and Eddie’s friendship-- they just were happening at the same time. And they both seemed to bring a lot of happiness to all of the parties involved.

Richie supposed that was why he was so thrown off when Eddie suddenly requested three days of no contact. Eddie was extraordinarily vague about the whole thing. He said he had something ‘important’ to do and that he thought it would go a lot ‘smoother’ if he kept his phone off for a couple of days. Richie asked if he’d been distracting Eddie from his studying too much, and Eddie said no. Richie asked if this had to do with school, and Eddie said ‘sort of,’ whatever that meant. And Richie was fine with it obviously, it was perfectly normal for friends to go three days without talking. The only reason he would have noticed is because he and Eddie had fallen into a habit of talking daily. It really only felt weird because Eddie had made it weird by calling attention to it. 

And yeah, maybe Richie was a little bit pouty that particular weekend, but it was probably only mostly because of all the stress of finals and graduation growing ever closer, along with the fact that he was going to need to find a new place to live soon because he was very quickly becoming a third wheel in his own apartment. He tried to lessen his stress by getting a jump start on studying but more or less just sat there being grumpy with the addition of a textbook in his lap. But it wasn’t like he was grumpy that he didn’t get to talk to Eddie for no reason. Sure, it was annoying that he kept thinking of things he wanted to say to Eddie only to realize he couldn’t. He guessed that if he really wanted to he could send Eddie texts for him to find when he turned his phone back on. But he refused to because he didn’t want to look needy. He  _ wasn’t  _ needy.

It was just his other main friend was currently too busy gushing over his new fiancee to hold an actual conversation, and apparently Patty’s apartment had fallen out of favor so now Richie had to deal with the two of them walking everywhere hand in hand looking like they thought they were already on their fucking honeymoon. It was enough to make anyone a little pissy. He knew he was being cynical, Stan and Patty weren’t the type to want to make him feel unwanted or edge him out of the picture on purpose. But without Eddie to talk to Richie didn’t have anything to distract him from the fact that his apartment seemed to have less and less room for him every day. 

To Stan’s credit, he did notice a drop in Richie’s mood and asked him why he wasn’t on his phone every waking moment like he’d been lately. Unfortunately, Stan unknowingly bringing up that Richie had no one else to talk to soured Richie’s mood even more, and what could have been the start to a productive conversation ended with Richie telling Stan he had to go because he had a date with Stanley’s mother and slamming the apartment door behind him. He spent the rest of the afternoon worrying that he’d annoyed Eddie too much and he’d gotten his phone number changed, or that three days would be enough time for them to forget each other again. So if that particular weekend felt like it lasted a month, it wasn’t because Richie was over-attached. There was just a lot going on and most of it didn’t feel so great.  

When his phone went of in the middle of class on Monday and he saw it was Eddie who’d texted him, he tried to dampen down his relief and excitement the way he had most of his emotions the past few days, but apparently it didn’t work too well. He spent the rest of the class only half-listening to a lecture that was probably important as he texted unabashedly. Eddie still didn’t elaborate on what he’d been doing the past few days but Richie (almost) didn’t care. When class let out, Sammy, a junior that Richie wasn’t close with but who was fun to hang out with at parties,  approached Richie with a mischievous look on her face.

“You finally land yourself a girlfriend, Tozier?” she teased.

Richie frowns, genuinely perplexed. “No, what makes you think that?”

Her smile doesn’t waiver. “I’ve just never seen someone so happy to get a text message before.”

“Well, it’s not every day I get sent nudes from a woman as beautiful as your mother.”

Sammy snorted as she laughed, smacking at his shoulder. “Richie, you’re the worst, do you know that?”

“Oh, I do hear that a lot just--” he sends her an exaggerated wink-- “never in the bedroom.”

It was far from his best material, but the impressive thing is that he wasn’t showing how miffed he was. The sting of the displeasure he’d been feeling the past few days was suddenly back and he didn’t know why. It really wasn’t that big a deal. Sammy just mistook his excitement to hear from a friend as the sort of excitement a person gets when their crush texts them. She didn’t mean anything by it, she didn’t know he was texting another boy. And even if she had, Richie wasn’t homophobic so it wasn’t like him to have some silly if-you-jokingly-imply-that-I’m-gay-I-must-spend-the-next-ten-thousand-years-proving-my-masculinity type of response. 

He supposed he just didn’t want to hear that his friendship with Eddie wasn’t a normal friendship. Because, on the one hand, it wasn’t. They’d been best friends for years only to not so much as think the other’s name for half a decade. The only reason they’d gotten back into contact is because Eddie had kept the same phone number for a long time and Richie had gotten distracted while trying to track down a stranger that he felt very strongly he should propose to in spite of the fact that she was, well, a stranger. Maybe it was also partly the aftermath of the bullying Richie had only recently remembered. Eddie had gotten bullied for seeming gay more than Richie had, but they’d both suffered a considerable amount of anti-gay slurs being flung in their direction. Obviously, the whole thing was bullshit, both because there’s nothing wrong with being gay and because Richie was straight and Eddie probably was too. But Richie guessed that it was normal for that kind of thing to leave a lasting mark even if you could rationalize how it shouldn’t. He must have just never felt it before because he hadn’t remembered the bullying very clearly, but that was another issue entirely. 

 

 

That night, just as Richie was starting to drift off, his phone rang, loud and abrasive. He groped for it angrily, ready to reject the call and get back to his beauty sleep with no remorse until he saw who was calling him. 

“Hi, Spaghetti…” he breathed.

“Shit, you sound tired. I woke you up, didn’t I? I’m sorry, I knew I shouldn’t have called you this late, I can let you go back to sleep.”

“No, no, ‘s fine. It’s always good to hear from Spaghetti Man, even when it’s--” he glanced at his clock-- “two in the morning.”

“Are you sure? You have finals coming up soon, I should’ve just waited--”

“I’m sure, Eds. Go ahead and profess your undying love for me or whatever it is you called me for, I’m fine.”

“Well, first off, I want to take this opportunity remind you that my name is Eddie and that every time you call me Eds, or pasta, or whatever other stupid bullshit you come up with I just end up hating you that much more.”

“Sure, sure. I mean I don’t call you pasta, just spaghetti but if you want me to mix it up, like if you’re prefer to be called linguini or ravioli or--”

“Oh, go fuck yourself, Richie Tozier.”

“Wait, wait, I know, angel hair! Like, it’s still spaghetti, but more specific and like, it fits cause you always have to have your hair so neat and you’re always messing with it making sure it stays parted in just the right way.”

“You haven’t seen me in six years. I could have a buzzcut now for all you know.”

“Yeah? You going through a punk phase? Did you dye all of your polo shirts black?”

“Maybe I did. You don’t know.”

“ _ Adorable. _ ”

Eddie made a series of gagging noises. 

Richie found himself wishing he could see what Eddie looked like. He had a vague idea of how he might have grown since they last saw each other, but he wanted to see for himself. He wanted to be able to pinch Eddie’s cheek like used to, to see Eddie’s smile as he smacked Richie’s hand away. They hadn’t talked about meeting up in person, but Richie thought maybe they should. He’d certainly have plenty of time on his hands once he got graduation and apartment hunting out of the way. 

“What’d you call to tell me though, actually?”

Eddie hesitated. “I-- I hope you won’t be mad. That’s actually why I called you in the middle of the night, I was sitting around feeling guilty about not telling you sooner and I figured I’d just get it over with. The thing is, ever since our first phone call, I’ve kind of been...lying to you.”

Richie did feel a slight pang, but nothing outrageous. He was more intrigued than anything else. “I’m not mad. Unless the thing you were lying about was your bra size. You know I need my girls double d or larger, no exceptions.”

Eddie made a noise that sounded like an exhale trying and failing to become a chuckle. “No, it’s not that, I promise. It’s just-- it’s pretty fucking pathetic.”

“Hey. Eddie,” Richie said, dead serious. “Nothing about you is pathetic.”

“Richie. God-- I told you I was living with friends because I didn’t want you thinking I’m a loser, but the truth is I’ve been living with my mom.”

“That’s not so bad. I mean, college is expensive, it makes sense to save money by staying with a parent if you can.”

“But it wasn’t like that. That’s the pathetic part. I’m not rolling in money by any means, but I could’ve managed. I didn’t stay with my mom cause I wanted to, I stayed with her because  _ she  _ wanted me to. Hell, more than wanted, she  _ demanded  _ it. I was desperate to leave. I tried, twice, but I always ended up coming back, just like she said I would.”

There was the Mrs.K Richie remembered. The looming figure in the doorway of the Kaspbrak house, the manipulative, smothering presence that was constantly vying to become the only thing in Eddie’s life. The woman who was always trying to steal Eddie away from his friends, from his own fragile self-confidence, from Richie. Richie had remembered hating her but until that moment he hadn’t realized just how much. “Eds. Eddie, it’s okay. Your mom, she’s--”  _ Evil-- _ “she’s a huge fucking piece of work, just like she always has been. She’s always tried to use the fact that she’s your mother to get you to do what she wants. The way I remember her getting into your head when we were kids… It was  _ awful _ . She’s  _ awful.  _ And if all that bullshit she does to try and get her way works on you it’s only because you’re trying to be a good son, because you care about her and she’s a fucking monster who tries to weaponize that. It’s not your fault that it’s been so hard for you to leave. It’s not pathetic at all. But now, you’ve got me and Stan to help you, and if you want out we can make sure you get out.”

“That’s the thing, Rich,” Eddie said, his voice thinly veiling his enthusiasm. “I kind of… well, I sort of did something a little crazy, and now I don’t have to live with her anymore.”

“Oh. Oh, Eddie, tell me you got rid of the body, like every last piece of it, teeth included.”

“Fuck off, I didn’t  _ kill  _ her. I moved out. That’s why I had my phone off for three days. I had to load up all of my stuff in secret and there was sort of a confrontation and I knew if I left it on she’d be calling me constantly. Hell, she called me constantly anyways, when I turned my phone back on today I had over a hundred missed calls.”

If it were Richie, he would have gotten a new phone number, but he supposed it wasn’t fair to assume he knew what it was like to have a mother that was insane. “No shit, Eds? You moved out all on your own?”

“Well, yeah. But when you say it like that it sounds like you’re proud of me for being house broken.”

“What if I’m--”

“Richard if you make some kind of diaper kink joke I’m hanging up on you and blocking your number.”

Rich wondered if he was getting too predictable. “Fine, fine. How’s your new, motherless domicile treating you, fun-killer?”

Eddie hummed. “It’s about what you’d expect a college student to be able to afford. The area’s decent, it’s only like a fifteen-minute drive to downtown Portland.”

“W--You moved to fucking Portland?”

“Portland  _ Maine,  _ Richie.”

“No, no, I figured, just isn’t that like a three-hour drive from Bangor? What are you gonna do about school?”

“I guess that’s another thing I kinda mislead you on, huh? I’m in online school. Mom insisted on it. She said a bunch of bullshit about how even if I didn’t live in a dorm I’d still be subjected to everyone’s germs and when that didn’t get me she printed out a bunch of statistics about school shootings and hung them all over my room.”

“Christ.”

“Yeah. I’m pretty sure she just didn’t want me to be able to make any friends. It backfired on her though, cause I got to move two hours away before the end of the semester with no consequences. The last two times I tried to move out I was staying way closer to where she was and it made it a lot easier for her to drag me back. I just. I’m nervous and excited and glad I finally did it but disappointed that it took so long and I’m really, really hoping I didn’t fuck things up for myself by doing all of this so fast.”

“How fast did you do it exactly?”

“I...kind of decided to move out the night after you first called me. And no, before you ask, it wasn’t because of  _ you.  _ It’s just that once I remembered you I started to remember some other stuff. A little bit about my mom, and how crazy she’s always been and all that fucked-up stuff that she told me when I was a kid. I just decided I’d had more than enough, you know?”

“I mean of course you have. I haven’t seen Mrs.K in half a decade and I’m still exhausted from the last time I spoke to her,” Richie said, trying to remember any detail at all about when Eddie left Derry. Nothing came to him.

There was a pause. “Rich…? Can I tell you something?”

Richie thought of a joke, then surprised himself by saying: “Anything.” He loved the way Eddie’s voice sounded when he whispered.

“I need it to work this time. Moving out. I’m scared I’ll go back. I’m scared I’ll just keep going back my whole life if I let myself.”

“Do you want to go back?”

“I think at least a part of me does. Part of me probably always will. But most of me wants to never even see my mom again, much less move back in with her. It’s not always about what I want, though. Like, if it came down to it I’d live with her over being homeless, and I’m going to try and drive full time but it’s not exactly the steadiest job and if I don’t bring in enough money, or no one responds to ad I put up for a roommate within the next month or two I’m screwed. Like--I should’ve waited longer-- I know I should’ve, but it felt like I was  _ suffocating  _ with her.”

“Are you breathing okay right now, Eddie?”

“I’m fine,” he says, but there’s less air behind his words than normal. “I’m probably gonna feel like I have emphysema until I find a roommate but I’ll live.”

Richie doesn’t let himself smile. If his current hope was a person, he would smack them with a broom until they couldn’t get up anymore. “What exactly are you looking for in a roomie?”

“Someone who pays half the rent, Richie. Beggars can’t be choosers. Is this the set up for a joke or did you actually have someone in mind?”

“Uhm--”  _ You’re gonna sound like a creep for even suggesting it-- _ “I just, had a sudden thought that maybe…”  _ Why am I so nervous? Why am I so attached to an idea I came up with less than a minute ago?  _ “WhatifIwasyourrommmate?”

“Do we have an equivalent for whatever you just said but in English perchance?”

“What if I moved in with you. Like, as your roommate. And I would like, make sure to pay my half the rent and also get a distinct toothbrush so that I never accidentally used yours and stuff.” Once. He had accidentally used Stan’s toothbrush once, because that was the maximum amount of times possible.You either made sure there was no chance of it ever happening again or you were killed on sight. 

“But you live in New York. With Stan.”

“Yeah, and Stanley gets less and less thrilled with our current arrangement every day. Not because I’m a bad roommate though-- I assure you I’m wonderful company-- Stan and Patty are just heavily anticipating their nuptials and ready to, you know, trade in the tricycle for a bicycle? And as far as the New York thing goes, it’ll be a non-issue once I graduate in a few weeks. I only came here for school, and I like it fine, but it’s not my dream city. I’d be willing to give Maine another shot as long as I don’t have to go back to Derry.” 

“You don’t really want to move to Maine, Richie. It’s a nice thought, but you can’t just uproot yourself because you want to help me.”

“Eds, I was looking at apartments before you told me this, I promise. I could send you a screenshot of my browser history to prove it if you want.”

“No, I believe you. There just. There has to be someone better for you to live with than some random person you used to be friends with as a kid, and there has to be somewhere better for you to go than Maine.”

“Eddie, I’m a communications major. No one is pounding on my door begging for me to accept their job offer. I have lots of acquaintances here but Stan and Patty are pretty much my only friends and at the rate they’re going they’re gonna be incapable of doing anything but trying to climb each other for the next year and a half. I’ve got nowhere better to go and no one better to stay there with.”

“Well you sure know how to make a guy feel wanted.”

“Oh, fuck you! You don’t want to be wanted you want me to need you so that you don’t feel like I’m doing you a favor.”

“Well, you’re not doing me any favors because I won’t let you.”

“It’s not a favor though! I need a place to live and you need a roommate. We’re symbiotic, you’re the hippo and I’m the little bird that lives in your teeth.”

“Richie-- what-- birds can’t  _ live  _ in teeth-- like I know what you’re talking about, and you mean live in the mouth, but even that’s wrong because I’m pretty sure they just drop in occasionally and eat off of the hippo’s teeth but they almost definitely don’t actually live in there.”

“Is that a yes?”

“Wh...What part of that sounded anything like a yes to you?”

“So it’s not a no?”

“Fucking-- maybe, happy?”

“Yup. ‘Cause maybe maybe is what I want to hear, cause maybe  _ maybe  _ might possibly mean yes.”

“Uhm. No. I take it back it’s a hard no and also I hope you get hit by a bus.”

“I can’t believe we’re gonna be roomies,  _ Roomie, _ ” Richie said in his worst valley girl voice.

Eddie groaned, and Richie could practically hear Eddie’s hands dragging over his own face in frustration. Richie realized he’d been smiling for a bit too long, but he wasn’t about to stop, either.

 

Three weeks later, Richie’s room was stacked full of half-way packed cardboard boxes. It was three days until graduation, and he was supposed to make drive up to Portland the day after. The stress of finals had left only to be replaced by the stress of moving. Richie’s parents had taken convincing, but in the end Richie’s enthusiasm and over-attachment to the idea steamrolled any objections. He knew that getting along with Eddie when they were roommates wouldn’t be as easy but he was desperate to make it work. He wanted it to with the same urgent and optimistic enthusiasm as a small child has when they want a puppy. In Richie’s head, it was a perfect arrangement. Stanley and Patty would get their alone time and Richie would get his childhood best friend back. It was almost more like a need than a want.

“Richie?” Stan ventured, having suddenly appeared in the doorway.

“The one and only, baby. Is Pat-pat still around?” Richie didn’t look up from the shirt he was folding.

“Nah, she went back to her place. She has packing and some last minute school stuff to take care of.”

“Yeah, yeah. I bet you can’t wait til I’m out of your hair. Do you have a measuring tape with you? Wanna take down some numbers so you can start converting this room into a home office or a man cave or whatever empty-nester wet dream it is you have for this place?”

Stan smiled while one of his hands played with the door knob. “I won’t pretend that it’s not gonna be nice for me and Patty to finally have our own place. That doesn’t mean I won’t miss you. We both will, you’re our friend. And we’re not gonna do anything to your room. I want you to know you can come back if something happens.”

“Nothing’s gonna happen.”

“I really hope not. It’s just-- it feels like you don’t really know him, and now you’re moving hours away from everyone else to live with him, and it just seems like--”

“Stan, we’ve been over this. I know Eddie and I have only been talking recently, but I remember him now. I’ve known him for years, we both have.”

“I don’t remember him that much.”

“Only cause you barely talk to him, Stan. I trust him, okay? If you don’t feel like you know him well enough to then can you at least trust me and my judgment?”

“I don’t mistrust you Richie, I’m just trying to look out for you.”

“Oh, Stanley, you mean you really do care?”

He rolled his eyes. “You definitely have a talent for making me wish that I didn’t.”

“It’s gonna work out. I have a good feeling about it.”

Stan frowned. “Can I ask you something, Richie? And get an actual answer instead of some lame attempt at a joke?”

“I promise to respond only with humor of the highest caliber.”

He groaned and turned to leave.

“Wait--Stan--” Richie called. “You can ask.”

Stan leaned against the door frame, eyes following the patterns of the hardwood floor. “Is Eddie… Do you want to move in with him so bad because you think he might be the one you were in love with when you were younger?”

Richie tried not to choke on his own spit. “What? No. No, I mean, Eddie’s great, but he’s, you know, a guy. So, not exactly my type.”

“You do know it’s okay to have more than one type though, don’t you?”

Richie could feel the heat crawling up his face. “Yeah, Stanny, it’s really sweet that you’re not a homophobe and all but can we skip the after-school special heart-to-heart moment? I’m straight. I would’ve told you if I wasn’t. Like, it would’ve come up before now.”

Richie hated the look on Stan’s face. It was his classic I-want-to-push-but-not-enough-to-bother-doing-it expression, a raised eyebrow, a skeptical tilt to his mouth. “I figured but I just thought I’d make sure. You seem really, really attached to him.”

“You would be too if you talked to him more. Our memories-- or, the lack of them I guess-- it’s weird. Something about it is wrong. I feel less like they’re gone and more like they got stolen from us. Like all the good things we used to have got taken away. And I want them back. I want Eddie back. The rest of our old friends, too, if I can get ahold of them. They were good people. We were good when we were with them.”

“What if we forgot for a good reason, Richie?” Stanley looked more than worried.

“It doesn't matter. Eddie is more than enough of a reason to remember. I’ll find a time to get the three of us together this summer, and you’ll see it.”

“...If you’re sure…”

“Oh, Stanley,” Richie said, shoving a pile of laundry to the side. “Get over here, you big softie.”

“Alright, that’s my cue to leave,” Stan went for the door, but Richie was too fast.

He enveloped Stan in his arms. Stanley squirmed, getting jabbed repeatedly because of how bony Richie was. Richie had several inches on Stan, but was lacking when it came to any sort of upper body strength, so he made sure to press as many sloppy kisses to his friend’s forehead as he could before Stan burst out of his grip. 

“I changed my mind,” Stanley said, wiping frantically at where Richie’s saliva shone on his forehead. “I’m no longer worried about you leaving. In fact, could you leave sooner? Now, ideally.”

“You can pout all you want, I know you love me.”

“Bye, Richie,” Stanley called, trying to shove Richie’s door closed as Richie fought to keep it open from the other side. “Have fun in Portland, Richie! Be sure to write!”

After a few moments, Richie let the door slam shut. He went back to the pile of clothes that needed packing with a soft half-smile on his face.

 

In the end, in spite of all Stan’s joking, saying goodbye wasn’t easy for either of them. The two were a somewhat unlikely duo, when they’d first decided to room together Stanley’s parents had spent weeks trying to talk him out of it. And Richie and Stan  _ had  _ driven each other crazy, especially that first year. They’d gotten more than a few noise complaints because of their screaming matches, but they always managed to work it out because they had something that the average pair of argumentative roommates didn’t. Their friendship. The fact that they truly and stubbornly loved each other. They’d gotten used to the constant presence of the other, whether it brought reassurance or annoyance or both. It was happening under the best of circumstances, both Richie and Stan were excited for their new living arrangements. But even so, it was still the end of something good. So what if Stan’s eyes had gotten a little watery as he helped carry the last load of boxes to Richie’s car? So what if Richie, when the time came, couldn’t bring himself to actually say the words ‘good bye’ and had opted instead to yell, ‘don’t think you’ve gotten rid of me for good this easily, fucker. I’ll be around.’ They both had an unspoken but nagging fear that being apart might cause them to forget each other.

That was all behind the both of them now. Stanley had to help move in Patty, and Richie was faced with the hours of open road between New York and Portland. The stretch of highway seemed to taunt him. There was too much time to think, and unravel his own anticipation, and make everything unreal, or wrong, or otherwise unpleasant. His thoughts drifted to the place they tended to these days. To Maine, to his forgotten adolescence, and most of all to Eddie Kaspbrak. 

He could feel the place in himself that had missed his friends all those years they had been forgotten. But more than he missed Bev or Bill or Mike or Ben, he missed Eddie. Eddie, who wore polo shirts and fanny packs. Eddie, who was prone to nervousness and extended a parental sort of caution to everyone he loved. Eddie, who was always willing to give Richie spare change when he came up short for a double scooped ice cream cone, who was never stingy with his band-aids when his friends got scraped up, who could always be trusted to find the quickest way out of the Barrens even when it was after dark and they had gone a bit deeper into the trees than they’d intended. Eds. Eddie Spaghetti, Eddie, my love. 

Sure, Richie could see why Stan thought it was a crush. That was friendship, though. Love, and when the friendship was good it ran just as deeply as it did in any romance. When friends traveled in twos, they were two people who loved each other, so it made sense they’d be mistaken for a couple sometimes. Hell, Richie and Stan had been mistaken for a couple before. Richie was touchy and flirty and that sort of thing came with the territory. And sure, he knew he loved Eddie somewhat differently from how he loved Stan, but there god knows how many different types of love. His stomach would sometimes flip when he and Eddie were talking, but that was just I-haven’t-seen-you-in-a-long-time nervousness, not I-have-a-crush nervousness. It could all be explained away but the thought kept insisting at him. He had no idea why, he was secure in his sexuality. Richie had always been attracted to girls and never gotten a crush on a boy. He was straight. If he weren’t straight that would’ve been fine, but he was. Because if he wasn’t straight, he’d  _ know  _ it, would’ve figured it out long before his college graduation. He loved Eddie. It was a serious, admiring, best friend sort of love. Nothing less and nothing more. He was just nervous, that’s all. He’d found a part of himself that he’d thought was lost forever. A part of himself he’d do anything not to lose again. 

The miles rolled by. He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel to the beat of the music on the radio. _ Tap-tap Tap-tap Tap-tap _ . But in his head, the sounds started to say _ Edd-ie Edd-ie Edd-ie.  _ His anticipation turned into nervousness and then out right anxiety. He turned off the radio. His car crossed the state line into Maine. He clenched his jaw until it ached. He tried to think about the landscape scrolling past him. Instead he thought about his old home, and what he hoped for from his new one.  He thought about his half-remembered childhood. He imagined going to Stan and Patty’s wedding. In his mind, he saw them slow dance as newly weds. After a few songs, Richie would cut in. Dance with Patty, then with Stan, just to torture him. Then maybe he’d find a cute Bridesmaid to chat up. Or maybe Eddie would be at the wedding. Of course he would. All seven of them would be there, because this was Richie’s imagination and things were allowed to be perfect. He’d dance with Bev, pull her into a dip so low that he risked dropping her onto the floor. He had a feeling that he’d danced with Bev before. Maybe then he would dance with Ben or Bill or Mike. 

_ Just don’t imagine slow dancing with Eddie. _

__ _ Not because there would be anything wrong with it. _

__ _ It’s just weird. You’re about to be roommates, don’t make it weird. _

 

__ It takes forever. Too long but also not long enough before Richie is being buzzed in to the front door of the apartment complex. He takes the elevator to the third floor. He glances through his phone, double checking the room number. He thought that he was excited, but it felt more like being scared. He knocked on the door, cardboard box resting in his hands, heart hammering in his throat. The door opened. The door opened because Eddie opened it, and there he was, standing in the cold light of the hallway-- He smiled when he saw Richie. Not a grin, a gentle smile, like an offer to hold hands if it was wanted. Richie took in the warm undertone of Eddie’s grayish-brown eyes. He saw the delicate slope of Eddie’s nose, noticed the faint freckles scattered across Eddie’s face. Eddie’s hair was parted neatly. It started to curl slightly at the ends. 

“Eddie…” Richie breathed.

“Hi, Rich. Are you alright? You’re making kind of a weird face.”

“I can’t help it.” He shifted the box under one arm so that his other was free. “It’s not every day I find out the cutest boy I’ve ever seen somehow managed to get even more adorable,” Richie said, reaching to pinch Eddie’s cheek.

Eddie slapped his hand away. “Christ, Richie. Don’t make me kick you out before you’ve even moved in.”

“You aren’t gonna kick me out. You love me.”

“I tolerate you.” Eddie narrowed his eyes in a put-on glare.

Richie just smiled back, the poster boy of feigned innocence.

After a few moments of that, Eddie begrudgingly moved aside and let Richie into the apartment. Richie had seen the apartment before, Eddie had given him a tour using facetime. Granted, Richie hadn’t paid as much attention as he could’ve because he devoted most of his energy into trying to get Eddie to show him his face with no success. The apartment was nothing special, it was very much in a student’s price range. A little cramped, a little drab. But Richie wasn’t bothered by any of that. Something about being there felt so right. He felt like he had finally realized where he was after being lost for a long time. It made sense. Eddie never got lost, so as long as Richie stayed near him, he never would, either.

Eddie lead Richie through the living room and down the hall. He opened the first door on the left side and flipped on the lights. There was a dresser, an empty bookshelf, a bed with no sheets on it, and a very small closet. Richie tossed the box onto the bed unceremoniously.

“Both rooms are pretty much the same, but I think this one has a better view.”

“Oh, Eds, you’re too kind.” Richie pulled up the blinds and took in the so-called view. Most of it was taken up by the parking lot, but you could see a bit of the park that was down the street. 

“...Better is relative,” Eddie admitted shyly. “My window faces an alley. I figured this would be a little better. I hope it’s not too… you know…”

“Hey, it’s perfect, really. I lived in New York before this, remember? If you wanted an apartment with a ceiling high enough for you to not have to duck your head it was an extra two hundred a month. If you got a rodent infestation you’d get charged pet rent. This is practically the lap of luxury compared to that.”

Eddie smiled, glancing down at the floor. “I guess you’re gonna need help getting all of your stuff up here, huh?”

“Yeah, and you’re going to have to bend down in front of me a lot. It’s really unfortunate.”

“Richie Tozier, if you slap my ass I swear I will send you back to New York in a hearse.”

Richie feigned innocence, and Eddie threatened him again. After they’d past a few more minutes like that they made their way down to Richie’s car and got to work carrying everything into the apartment. They made short work of it and soon found themselves sitting side by side unpacking the contents of the boxes.

“God, and here I was hoping you’d cut down on the Hawaiian shirts over the years,” Eddie said, wrinkling his nose as he held up a particularly colorful button down.

“Are you kidding? That’s my signature look.”

“They make you look like a complete idiot.”

“Like I said, my signature look!”

Eddie huffed, but continued to transfer clothes into the dresser. He reached into the box again, pausing as his hand touched the corner of something. He pulled loose a picture frame. From behind the glass, a younger Richie and Eddie beamed at him.

Rich leaned over Eddie’s shoulder to look at it. “I found that in my storage closet when I was sorting through stuff for the move. There’s another picture in my stuff somewhere that has all seven of us in it. We’re even younger in that one. Like, twelve, maybe.”

Eddie’s smile was dripping with nostalgia. “We should hang them both up in the living room. I mean, if you’re okay with that. The only pictures I have are of me and my mom and I didn’t exactly feel like hanging those up all over the place, so the walls are kind of bare. But no pressure.”

“No, I think that’s a good idea. In fact, we should put them up now and then watch tv or something because I think if I have to unpack another box I’m going to cry.”

“Yeah, sure,” Eddie said without looking up from the picture.

 

They end up collapsed on the couch and having a horror movie marathon. Richie vetoed anything with werewolves, and Eddie refused to watch  _ Psycho.  _ They also found out that they had a mutual dislike of clowns. In the end, they stuck mostly to ghost and zombie movies. Richie’s taste ran quite a bit gorier than Eddie’s, and during some of the more graphic parts Eddie would lean into Richie’s shoulder so he didn’t have to look. Richie didn’t mind. They ordered in dinner and when the delivery person knocked they got into a brief but heated debate over who would have to get up and bring the food over. They ended up having to put on subtitles because of how much they were talking over the film (Eddie blamed Richie, but he was almost just as bad.) Time passed easily between them and Richie had all but forgotten it existed when Eddie leaned against him unabashedly.

“You tired, Eds?” He whispered.

Eddie shook his head and leaned even closer. His breathing was light and slow.

_ Liar,  _ Richie thought. He found himself staring at Eddie, the sounds of the movie fading into the background. It wasn’t long until it seemed there was only the two of them. Richie took in the translucence of Eddie’s eyelids, the curl of his eye lashes, the beginnings of stubble on his cheeks, the slightly pouty disposition to his lips. Richie’s breathing slowed to match Eddie’s and then his eyes drifted shut. The warmth of his friend against him spread into the warmth of an overheated room. At first, he thought he was dreaming.

_ It was winter. Richie could tell his mother had gotten too enthusiastic with the thermostat. He was in his old room, in Derry. He got an unexpected text from Eds and he crept down stairs to meet him at the door. Eddie’s slight, dark figure contrasted the color of the ground, which was dusted with a light snow. Eddie wasn’t wearing a jacket. Richie had already known  that whatever had happened was probably about Eddie’s mother, because it was almost always about her. The lack of a jacket was confirmation, though. Sonia Kaspbrak would never let her son out of the house this time of year without at least three layers and a winter coat so large and puffy it made Eddie halfway disappear. Eddie was in long sleeves but the shirt was clearly thin and Richie could see him trying not to shiver. _

__ _ Richie hurriedly pulled him in from the cold. He knew better than to say anything about Eddie’s lack of winter attire. The pair crept upstairs in silence. Richie closed the door behind then while Eddie moved things around so he had a spot to sit on Richie’s bed. _

__ _ “You didn’t have to walk all the way over here you know,” Richie offered. “I would’ve come to you. I could find my way to your house in my sleep after how many times I’ve come over in the middle of the night to visit your mother.” _

__ _ Instead of telling Richie to go fuck himself like he usually would, Eddie let himself fall back into Richie’s pillows. “I just didn’t want to be in that house anymore.” _

__ _ Richie took a tentative seat at the edge of the bed. “Yeah, I get it.” _

__ _ “You don’t, though. Your parents aren’t perfect but they don’t lie to you, or try to keep you from having friends or keep you locked in the house for days on end anytime they can find an excuse to.” _

__ _ Richie hated himself for saying the wrong thing. Idiot, you idiot-- “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.” _

__ _ “No, I-- It’s fine. I’m mad but not at you. I’m glad you don’t get it. I’m glad your parents are normal. If your mom was like my mom I wouldn’t be able to stand it. I’d hate her.” _

__ _ “If it means anything, I do hate your mom. That’s actually why we’re hooking up all the time. When you hate someone, it opens up a lot of doors as far as how freaky you’re willing to get with each other.” _

__ _ Eddie didn’t break eye contact with the ceiling. “I think you might actually be the worst person I’ve ever met.” _

__ _ Richie lowered himself so that he and Eddie were lying side-by-side. “I mean, if you really hate me, feel free to express it more physically, Eds.” _

__ _ “Don’t call me that, Trashmouth. The only type of physical anyone’s ever gonna get with you is into a fist fight.” _

__ _ “Why use fists for punching when you could--” _

__ _ Eddie leaped up and slammed his hand over Richie’s mouth before he could finish the thought. That was, as always, a mistake. Richie was more than happy to lick Eddie’s hand until he tore it away and wiped his hand on the bed sheets in frantic revulsion. _

__ _ “God, Richie, you are so disgusting!” _

__ _ “Hey, all I did was the same thing I do to anyone who tries to cover my mouth. You should’ve known what was coming. Hell, I’m starting to suspect part of you likes having your hand slobbered on by me.” _

__ _ Eddie pulled a bottle of hand sanitizer out of his fanny pack and drenched his hands in it. “Next time I get into a fight with my mom I’m going over to Bill’s house. Bill never gets drool on me.” _

__ _ “Yeah, but Bill’s not your favorite. I’m your favorite.” _

__ _ “You are not.” Eddie’s ears turned pink. “You’re annoying. You just live the closest.” _

__ _ For some reason, seeing Eddie blush always made Richie smile. “Whatever you say, Eds. Do you wanna tell me why you and your lovely mother were fighting?” _

__ _ “It’s always the same fight. I want to have a life and she wants me to live in quarantine. I should be used to it by now. Part of me is used to it, but…” he trails off with a huff. _

__ _ When it becomes obvious he doesn’t intend to continue, Richie asks, “But, what, Eddie?” _

__ _ “It doesn’t matter. It’s stupid.” _

__ _ “Well tell me anyway.” _

__ _ “It’s just...even after everything that happened--” to the Richie on the couch lying with his eyes closed as he remembers this, everything is a big, dark ink splotch marking out part of his memory-- “I’m still scared of her. I know getting me afraid is how she controls me, I know there are things out there way worse than my over-protective mom, but I still get scared anyway, I still just keep letting her get to me and it’s pathetic.” _

__ _ Richie hates the way Eddie’s anger has turned around on itself. He hates how Sonia always finds a way to make Eddie feel like there’s something wrong with him, even now. “Eddie. Eds, you… you know you’re allowed to be scared of things that aren’t...you know… that, right? Even if your mom isn’t the worst thing you’ve ever faced, she can still be pretty intimidating. She scares me sometimes, too, and I don’t even have to deal with her all that often.” _

__ _ “I feel like I’m just going to keep doing what she wants me to, Richie. I think she wants to keep me all to herself, forever, and I think I might end up just letting her.” This time, Eddie’s eyes are going red instead of his ears. _

__ _ “You’re here right now even though she doesn’t want you to be.” _

__ _ “Yeah, but I’ll be back in my room tomorrow morning. If she figures out I left she’ll yell and I’ll apologize and even if I do little things for myself I still pretend to be her perfect son and I think one day it’ll stop being pretend.” _

__ _ “That’s not gonna happen. Me and Bill and Stan and everyone will make sure it doesn’t. We won’t let it happen, not to you.” _

__ _ “What if it isn’t up to you guys, Richie?” _

__ _ “I guess it isn’t. But it’s not up to your mom, either. It’s your life, Eddie. You’re in control of it, not her. Even if she tries to make you feel like she is.” _

__ _ Eddie drew his knees up close to his chest. “It just doesn’t seem like it’s going to be that easy.” _

__ _ “It probably won’t be. But you’ll have help. Mike and Ben and me and everyone. We’ll all be there.” _

__ _ “But what if you move away, like Bev?” _

__ _ “We won’t. Look, we’re already in high school, right? Only three more years to go.” _

__ _ “Three and a half.” _

__ _ “Sure, three and a half. But you’ll turn eighteen November of senior year. You can move out then if you want. You could probably stay here, even, my parents like you more than enough. And then once we graduate-- the second we graduate, we can move as far away from here as you want. Go to college together. We could find a big old house and the six of us could rent it out together. Or we could get an apartment, just me and you if that sounds better. All we have to do is stick together for three more years. I know we can do it.” Richie didn’t realize how desperately he wanted those things until he was saying them. _

__ _ “I guess that does sound kind of nice,” Eddie said, and it made Richie’s chest feel light with hope. “Well, except for the part about having to live with you.” _

__ _ “Shut up! I know you love me.” _

__ _ “Fat chance. But hey, maybe if you stop joking about sleeping with my mother and calling me shitty nicknames all the time I’ll be able to stand being around you.” _

__ _ “Oh, come here, you big sap!” Richie exclaimed, trapping Eddie in a particularly forceful cuddle. _

__ _ Eddie, surprisingly, didn’t try to escape. “You’re lucky that I’m tired and that this is kind of warm,” he admitted begrudgingly. “Otherwise I’d pummel you so badly everyone would think that Henry Bowers was back.” _

__ _ It was warm. Almost too warm, and Richie felt a little uncomfortable, suddenly aware of how close he was to Eddie. Like he wanted to move far away and never let go at the same time. “If you’re tired, go to sleep. I’ll set an alarm so you can leave early tomorrow if you want.” _

__ _ Eddie murmured something that sounded like an agreement, and fell completely unconscious within the next few minutes. _

__ _ Richie lay there, feeling Eddie’s breaths grow steady beneath the arms he had wrapped around him. He felt almost stunned. Sure, he and Eddie had shared a bed at sleepovers before. And Richie was always very touchy with his friends. But he’d never had someone fall asleep in his arms like this before. Something about it struck him. The vulnerability, the closeness. Holding Eddie like this made him feel like...like was responsible for making sure nothing bad happened to Eddie while he slept. Like Eddie was his to take care of in some strange way. In a sense, he supposed that it was true-- he believed that friends were meant to try and take care of each other-- but this seemed different. He felt nervous at the idea. His hands were going clammy and he felt like he was about to start having trouble breathing because his heart was creeping steadily up his throat and he thought he’d never felt so nervous in his entire life, but he had no idea why-- _

__ _ Except Richie was in highschool. Except not too long ago he watched Beverly Marsh be mooned after by two of his closest friends for an entire summer. Except that Richie knew, first hand or not, what having a crush was like. _

__ _ The thought had crossed his mind before, but usually he would just drop Eddie’s hand and tell himself that his palms were just sweaty because of body heat and that if he felt nervous it was just because he was afraid that someone else would see and wrongly think what he himself was wrongly thinking. He was not at all prepared to be trapped cuddling Eddie because he didn’t want him to wake up. Richie had fully expected to be shoved away the minute he got his arms around his friend. He hadn’t intended to end up holding another boy while he slept. So of course he hadn’t wanted to, and his pulse wasn’t going even faster now, and he wasn’t panicking, and he could calm down any time because nothing was wrong and everything was normal and no one had a crush on anyone. _

His eyes snapped open. He was back in his new apartment, and he and Eddie were back to being out of college. The dreamlike memory dissipated, but his heart was still pounding. He forced himself to look at where Eddie lay against him sleeping. 

__ _ See, it’s just Eddie. Just your friend, Eddie. And maybe when you guys were teenagers you were a little confused by how you felt around him but that’s just cause you were a dumb kid with raging hormones and a lack of understanding about how romantic feelings work. Eddie is your friend, and you love him as a friend and you enjoy talking to him and being near him and sure you can be touchy but that’s just cause you like to be physically affectionate, and if the idea of holding his hand makes you nervous you’re just being silly because there’s no rule saying that hand-holding can’t be platonic, it’s not like you sit around thinking about-- _

Richie’s eyes, Richie’s shitty, traitorous, near-sighted eyes traced down Eddie’s face to meet his lips. Thin but not too thin, slightly chapped, but still pink, and--

A wave of memories crashed over him, so strong they could’ve taken Richie’s footing. Because the winter night he’d just recollected was far from the only time he’d gotten his breath taken away by Eddie Kaspbrak. It had started with staring. As far back as he could remember, he’d find himself studying the way Eddie stood on the bank of the Kenduskeag, or how steadily Eddie held his hands while applying band-aids, or how his face looked when he was fighting not to smile at one of Richie’s shitty jokes. Then there was the touching, always finding an excuse to sling an arm over Eddie’s shoulder or hold his hand or pinch his cheek or sit a little bit closer to him than was strictly necessary. The older they got, the worse it got. In highschool it was outright pining. Seeing couples in the hallway and praying that one day that could be them. Making a point to say ‘I love you’ a little too often, as if Eddie might suddenly understand he meant it in more than a friendly way if he said it enough as opposed to specifying. He remembered kissing Eddie’s cheek, trying to work up the nerve to just barely catch the corner of his mouth. And then he remembered nothing. Eddie moved away. Richie and Stan went to college together. Richie dated Sandy for two years. He spent a year being single, and nothing. Not one thought of the boy he’d mooned over for years until just over a month ago, when Stan happened to strike a chord while going on about what love was like. Because he did have a long-lost love. But it wasn’t some girl. It was his best friend turned roommate who was currently snoring lightly against Richie’s side.

_ Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.  _

Richie’s hands were shaking. He carefully slid out from beneath Eddie and replaced  the spot he’d been with pillows. He started to walk away, then turned back and draped a blanket over Eddie before moving on.

He did some frantic googling. It took forever to type in his questions because of how uneasy his hands were. When the internet was no help he called Stan. When it went to voicemail he redialed, once ,then again, then--

“Richard,” Stanley said, sounding both exhausted and thoroughly pissed off. “This had better be good because it is three in the goddamn morning.”

Richie tried to speak and choked on air. “Fuck,” he coughed. “No, I know, I’m sorry. It’s just-- this is bad. This is really bad and I don’t know what to do and I’m going to fuck everything up please help me.”

“Richie,” Stan said, his voice turning over itself in concern. “Are you alright? Are you safe right now?”

“I’m safe but I’m not alright. I kind of feel like if one more thing ever happens to me I’m going to start having a panic attack and then never stop and I’ll just kind of suffocate to death.”

“Alright, listen, how about you breathe with me for a minute Rich?” Richie can hear the sound of Stanley getting out of bed in the background.

“Okay, I think I can do that,” Richie said. He tried not to feel too bad about waking Stanley up. He needed to talk to someone right then or he was going to go crazy.

Stan counted Richie’s breaths slowly, up to ten and then back down. “Okay,” Stan said as soothingly as he could. “Do you feel any better now? Like you could talk without freaking out?”

“Yeah,” Richie swallowed. “I just kind of remembered some stuff, and it’s a lot.”

“Remembered stuff like what?” Stanley was back to sounding worried, maybe even more worried than before.

“I remembered who I had a crush on, back when we lived in Maine.”

“Eddie,” Stan said.

“You knew this whole time?” Richie’s voice felt like it was about to crack.

“I mean, I did ask if you liked him. I was surprised when you said no because it’s painfully obvious. I figured you were either in denial or I was misreading it.”

“Oh God, you don’t think Eddie knows, do you?”

“If he does, the only possible reason I could see for him letting you move in with him is because he likes you back.  _ I  _ can’t imagine being able to deal with the sort of bullshit you pull on people you like if it was a one-sided attraction.”

“So, basically there’s no way he likes me back and if he ever finds out it’s going to make him really uncomfortable and ruin our friendship and our lease and my self-esteem?”

Stan sighs. “Richie, he’s talked to you non-stop for a month. He agreed to move in with you after only talking to you for that long. I can’t say for sure if he likes you but from where I’m standing it seems pretty likely.”

“But-- he has no other friends. His mom didn’t let him, that’s why he moved out, and he let me move in because he needs the money, and he probably only talks to me cause he hasn’t met anyone better to talk to but what if he does? What if when he does it’s over? Or what if he finds out I’m-- you know, that I like him and it makes him hate me?”

“Well if finding out you aren’t straight makes him not like you then he’s a waste of time. But he did sort of grow up being made fun of for looking gay, I’d be really surprised if he turned out homophobic. As for all that other stuff, maybe it’s true? I don’t know or remember him the way that you do, Richie. You’ve got to find things out for yourself. If you like this guy half as much as it seems like you do you should go for it and stop trying to convince yourself you have no chance.”

Richie groaned. “You don’t get it, Stan. You already  _ have  _ the love of your life. You’re fucking  _ engaged  _ to her! Eddie and I went six years without talking, but before that I was fucking  _ obsessed  _ with him. I dated Sandy for two years and I never felt anything close to what I felt when I was mooning after Eddie in fucking high school. If- if he doesn’t like me back then I wasted actual years of my youth and if he does, you know, what then? I’m happy for a few months before he realizes I’m not worth it and I’m back to square one, except worse because I’m not just single, I’m also obsessed with someone who wants me to fuck off and I have to deal with the fact that I ruined my chances with my best friend and also I’m apparently not straight even though I don’t know how to be not straight because I spent my college years thinking I was? Like-- I’m ruined, either way, I’m ruined.”

“...Is this about you wanting Eddie to like you or is this some kind of gay crisis?”

“I don’t know. I’m not completely gay, I know I like girls, too. And I feel like I’ll never get over Eddie but I felt that way about Sandy, too, and I still got over her. It’s mostly that something about this is really wrong, Stanley. It’s not normal.”

Stan hesitated. “You think liking guys isn’t normal?”

“No, no, this  _ situation  _ isn’t normal. The fact that I had the biggest crush on Eddie and then completely forgot he existed for  _ multiple years  _ isn’t normal. And at least that part of it you could say I forgot just because I don’t remember my life before college super well. Like maybe I have a bad memory, people have forgotten crushes they had in high school before, it’s not the strangest thing that’s ever happened. But it’s not just me that doesn’t remember living in Maine very well. You and Eddie both also barely remember anything. And when we were in college I thought it was normal to not think about your hometown, but now that I’m thinking about it I remember plenty of people who were still close to their friends from high school. Or, even if they didn’t talk to them anymore they’d still mention them, because they weren’t forgotten that quickly. At this point I don’t know if it would be more or less creepy if we got a hold of our other old friends and found out they didn’t remember much, either. But that’s not even the worst part. Cause like, forgetting things that happened is normal even if forgetting them that suddenly isn’t. The worst part is that I didn’t freak out because I suddenly just realized I’m bisexual. I freaked out because I just suddenly remembered that I already  _ knew.  _ I can remember being in high school and knowing that I was into Eddie. I  _ knew  _ I wasn’t straight, and all that stuff I said about not being into guys wasn’t denial. I completely forgot that it was even possible for me to have feelings for another guy. I literally forgot my own sexuality. I’m not sure exactly when it happened, but it did. Like, when you asked me if I liked Eddie I said no because I thought I was straight, because I thought I’d know if I wasn’t. And I did know and then just forgot. So before I called you I googled a million things about it, trying to see if that’s something that can happen if you’re like super repressed or a closet case or something. It’s not. Nothing came up because that’s not a thing that can happen to people. Or if it did, you’d probably have to have dementia or a traumatic brain injury or something. I turned around and forgot something about myself that it doesn’t seem like it’s normally even possible to forget.”

“...You’re  _ sure  _ you forgot? It couldn’t just be really deeply ingrained denial?”

“Yes, Stan! I know the difference between not wanting something to be true and literally not knowing that it is! Besides, being in denial wouldn’t make sense for me because I literally, actually don’t care that I’m not straight. Like I only just remembered that I’m bi like twenty minutes ago and I don’t feel guilty about it or anything. I feel freaked out beyond belief, but that’s only because I’m an idiot who moved in with someone only to suddenly remember I used to be in love with them and also that I’ve fucking stumbled onto a conspiracy of collective and impossible memory loss.”

“Rich, do you need me to count your breathing again?”

“No! Fuck off, I don’t need to calm down, I need to find out why there’s a huge chunk of all of our memories missing!”

“Why?” Stan asked evenly.

“ ‘Why’?” Richie sputtered. “B-- because our memories are  _ gone  _ and it’s fucking weird and wrong and it needs to be fixed.”

“How are you going to fix it, though?”

“I don’t know! But I feel like I should at least try instead of sitting around pretending like it’s not happening like you seem happy to do.”

“Richie...sometimes, when bad things happen, our brain keeps us from remembering them to protect us. Like, as a defense mechanism.”

“But Eddie is  _ good.  _ All of our old friends were. Why would we just forget about them?”

“Maybe they were connected to something bad. Maybe it’s hard to remember them without all of the bad things that surround the time that we were friends with them rushing in.”

Richie frowned. “Stan, do you already know why we’ve forgotten so much? If you do, will you just be honest with me?”

“I don’t know, I swear. I just have a sense that you shouldn’t try to dive into things head first. I think we’ll remember when we need to. I think you remembered Eddie at the right time and that you’ll remember everything else then, too. Maybe you should try finding reasons to remember instead of trying to explain why you forgot. I think trying to deal with that on top of everything else is too much.”

Richie studied the floor of his new bedroom. “Maybe.”

“If you can, I think you should tell Eddie that you like him.”

Richie blushed. “No fucking way. With my luck, he’s probably straight and I’ll just embarrass myself.”

“Well, find out if he’s straight, then. If he is, then you’ll know to move on and if he’s not then you’ll at least know that you have a chance.”

“But-- like, how am I even supposed to do that?”

“Jesus fucking christ, Richie. You ask him. Like a normal person. You really must like this guy, every time I say his name you drop twenty IQ points.”

“Shut up.”

“Oh, gladly. If your crisis is over I’m going to go back into bed and cuddle with my fiancee.” 

“Fuck off. I hope she gives you crabs.”

“Goodnight, Richie.”

 

Richie Tozier spent the next two weeks in quiet agony. Now that he knew the reason he enjoyed Eddie’s company so much he couldn’t think about anything else. And it seemed that old feelings had come back to him alongside memories. He felt something beyond what you’d feel for an old crush you’d recently been reunited with. There was something very teenaged about Richie’s feelings. He was hopelessly smitten. Richie found something to romanticize in everything that Eddie did. Richie loved how Eddie always wore matching socks, and the way he took the time to iron collared shirts in the morning. Sometimes, if Richie was also wearing a button-down Eddie would demand he take it off so that it could be ironed as well. On those mornings, Richie would stare at Eddie, arms crossed over his chest as he prayed Eddie wouldn’t look up from the ironing board and notice his blushing. Richie loved that Eddie used the tiniest bit of gel to keep his hair back, and how his face crinkled in the most endearing way possible when he frowned. He loved the way Eddie’s voice sounded when he was trying to make himself sound more upset then he actually was. He even loved the way Eddie held his silverware. It was hopeless. 

Richie found himself  _ staring _ at Eddie a lot more, and actually talking to him less. He’d started to get tongue-tied like a fucking middle schooler. His jokes got even lamer than usual. It was hard to think when Eddie was there, his thoughts became a mess of moonstruck adoration. When Eddie wasn’t around he could think a little clearer, but not much. He was constantly remembering things about his childhood, but nothing particularly revealing. It was mostly things about Eddie. Times Eddie had been kind, or times Richie had embarrassed himself in front of his crush. Once, when Richie had tried to subtly scoot closer to Eddie on the couch while the two of them were watching TV together, his brain had chimed in, ‘Hey! Remember that time in the fifth grade Henry Bowers kicked you in the face so hard you though you had a broken nose and you sobbed for three hours straight? Remember how much snot and blood you got all over Eddie’s shoulder while you were clinging to him and crying? I wonder if he remembers,’. 

Richie had never felt so anxious in his life and Eddie had definitely started to pick up on the sudden change. At first, Richie tried to pass it off as trouble adjusting to graduation and the move and the new job, but as time went on the excuse became less convincing. One night during dinner, Eddie stood up from his seat abruptly.

“Let’s go somewhere.”

Richie didn’t respond for several awkward moments because he would rather die than talk to Eddie while there was still food in his mouth. “You mean, right now? We’re in the middle of eating.”

“Yeah, but it’s just shitty macaroni and cheese. We won’t be missing anything.”

“It’s not that shitty,” Richie said.

“Well get up anyway. I want to take you somewhere.”

And of course Richie followed him. He sat in the passenger seat of Eddie’s car, trying and failing not to stare at him while he drove. He hadn’t been in Eddie’s car often, but when he had he could practically sense how comfortable Eddie felt behind the wheel. He was always calm and unperturbed, even when other drivers around him were being assholes. Richie loved to see the way Eddie’s anxiety seemed to dissipate temporarily. Loved seeing his profile set sharp in concentration. 

“So how long are you planning on staring at me?” Eddie asked with a smile, not breaking eye contact with the road.

Richie wished he was literally anywhere else. “I-- I’m not-- don’t flatter yourself or anything, but at certain angles, you look kind of like your mom.”

Eddie flipped on his turn signal. “Sure. Richie, are you ever gonna tell me what’s wrong? Ever since the first night you got here, you’ve been acting like you’re scared of me or something. If I’m doing something wrong, like, making you uncomfortable somehow, you can tell me.”

“You’re not doing anything wrong, Eds--”  _ Hell, I don’t even know if you’re capable of doing anything wrong. You’re so perfect, you’re so--  _ “I’m just…” Richie ended up being more honest than he thought he’d be. “I  _ am  _ scared, but not of you. I’m scared I’m gonna fuck things up. Now that we’re friends again I’m worried I wouldn’t know how to function without you being around. It feels creepy and clingy but I think you and Stan and the rest of our old group were the best friends I ever had and like if I lose you guys then I’ll never be able to find anyone who means even half as much to me as you guys do. I’m worried you’re gonna wake up one day and realize how obnoxious I am and kick me out or something.”

“Richie, I already know better than anyone how obnoxious you are. If it really bothered me, I wouldn’t have agreed to be your roommate in the first place.”

Richie stared down at his lap, playing with his hands. “...Really?”

“Of course. You’re one of the best friends I’ve ever had, Rich. I still don’t remember everything, but I’m well aware of what an annoying little asshole you can be and I wouldn’t have it any other way. You’re the fucking worst sometimes, but I still love you. That’s friendship.”

“I love you too, Eds,” Richie said, feeling dazed from hearing Eddie say that he loved him again after all these years. Immediately falling back into his old habit of telling Eddie he loved him and praying that somehow his friend would know he meant it in more ways than one. He was so fucking hopeless.

“Is that really all that was bothering you?”

“I…”  _ Tell him, you idiot. Tell him and maybe he’ll tell you.  _ “I guess there’s one more thing…”

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“No, I do want to.” Richie decided, watching his fingers dance around each other. “I’m… I’m bi, Eddie. Not very many people know--”  _ Meaning only you, me and Stan know, because I only just remembered I was last month. It was kind of a you-centered epiphany, by the way--  _ “by the time I thought to tell you, we were already planning on moving in together and I worried it’d make you uncomfortable or something…”

“Well it doesn’t. And I’m glad you trusted me enough to tell me. Knowing that doesn’t change how I think of you one bit, I promise.”

_ What if I want it to? What if I want you to start thinking about dating me, about moving in with me because you want to always be around me and not just to keep the rent down?  _

And then, in Stan’s voice:  _ Just ask him, Richie. Just ask him, like a normal person. _

“Eddie, are you… you know, straight?”

Eddie laughs, but it’s not a that’s-funny laugh. And maybe Richie should’ve known better than to ask, should’ve realized that asking whether Eddie was straight would, in some part of Eddie’s mind be asking, ‘Hey, Eddie, remember when Henry Bowers called you a fairy and shoved into the mud? Remember when Victor Criss called you a little sissy girly-boy and spat on your face? Were they right? Are you a fairy, Eddie?’ “I dated this girl once.  _ Myra, _ ” Eddie said her name like it was a curse word. “I met her when I was a senior in highschool. It’s funny, I thought my mom would like her. Both because I thought if I finally brought a girl home she’d stop lecturing me about the dangers of catching homosexuality, and because part of me recognized how alike they were and I thought she’d be happy I’d found someone else to help her worry over me all the time. But they  _ hated  _ each other because they both wanted me to themselves. It became some sort of rebellion thing. Like, ‘up yours, Mom, you don’t control me, Myra does.’ They even fucking looked alike. So after we broke up, I told myself that that was why I didn’t have any real feelings for her our whole relationship. I didn’t like her because she was a clone of my mother and I didn’t like any other girls because I didn’t get to see any other girls. After I graduated I did online school like my mom wanted and I was driving as my job so I didn’t have any coworkers or friends. The only people I saw regularly were my mom and my primary care doctor. I figured I had to be straight cause even though I’d never liked a girl I’d never liked a boy, either. I figured that I only even worried about it because people called me gay because I’m not the poster boy of masculinity. Between every bully I’ve ever met trying their hardest to convince me I’m gay and my mother and Myra and me all trying our hardest to convince me I could never possibly be, I ended up a little fucked up about it. And now… ever since I started talking to you and Stan and remembering being a kid… I’m getting the feeling that when we were younger I had a crush on someone. Another boy. And I know...I  _ know _ that means I’m probably...not straight, but I just-- I just fucking hate thinking about it.”

“Eds…” Richie said, feeling guilt drape over him. Because for the past two weeks he’d been praying to the universe that Eddie Kaspbrak wasn’t heterosexual, but getting confirmation that he wasn’t had disheartened him instead of making him want to throw a parade like he’d expected. Instead of thanking god that he might have a chance with the boy of his dreams, his heart was aching at the thought of everything Eddie had gone through because of his sexuality. Richie, quite illogically, felt like it was his own fault, like if he hadn’t prayed that Eddie liked boys, and more specifically him, that his best friend might be well-adjusted and securely heterosexual. That Eddie wouldn’t be carrying shame around with him everywhere. As much as Richie wanted to be with Eddie, he wanted Eddie to be happy even more. If being straight could’ve made Eddie happy, then Rich would have chosen that for him over any possible future the two of them might have together. Because he loved Eddie. He loved Eddie’s happiness more than his own, a thousand times more.

“I’m sorry. I should’ve just said ‘probably not’ and left at that instead of going on and on about it.”

“No, I’m glad you told me. It sounds like you needed to say it. And Eddie, I’m… I’m so fucking sorry that your Mom and Myra and all of those shitty bullies made you feel like this. I fucking hate them for doing that to you, and… And I want you to know it doesn’t matter to me. You can be straight or gay or whatever else and it’s not important because at the end of the day when I look at you I’ll always just see my friend. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had and at this point I don’t think you’re capable of doing or saying anything that can change that. And you definitely can’t  _ be  _ anything that could change that, because you’re sort of a package deal. I love everything about you, even the stuff I don’t know for sure.”

The car slows as Eddie pulls into a parking lot. “I… thank you for saying all of that, Rich.”

“I mean it,” Richie said, staring at Eddie, hoping that he would meet his eyes and see just how serious he was.

Eddie doesn’t look over, though. He pulls into a parking spot. “We’re here.”

Richie looks up. Through the store fronts large glass windows, he sees a retro and cheerily-lit ice cream parlor. The floor is checkerboard tile and the seats are turquoise pleather. “Holy shit, Eds. This place is just like Freese’s.”

Eddie tries to clamp down on a proud smile. “I know. You were the first person I thought of when I found it. I’ve been wanting to take you since you got into town but I wanted to wait for a special occasion.”

“Oh yeah, what’s the occasion? Are you finally gonna let me get to second base tonight?” 

“Fuck off. The occasion is I was tired of watching you mope around the apartment and I figured that since this place is sort of out of the way I could use the drive over to interrogate you.” 

“You sure know how to make a gal feel special.”

The pair exited the car and went in. Richie found himself being bombarded with nostalgia as he surveyed the ice cream flavors.

“I’m paying, so feel free to do your worst,” Eddie said.

Eddie ended up getting two scoops of raspberry sorbet on a cake cone and Richie got one scoop of rocky road, one scoop butterscotch swirl, and one scoop of peanut butter and chocolate chip all heaped onto a waffle cone. When their total came up on the register he felt a bit guilty and made a mental note to find an excuse to take Eddie someplace nice and treat him to dinner soon. Eddie didn’t seemed bothered though. Richie supposed that if anyone was used to having to pay up for Richie’s extravagant ice cream eating habits it was him.

Eddie told him there was a small park behind the stripmall and they walked to it together. They ended up sitting next to each other on a swing set that is clearly intended for small children while they ate their ice cream and joked back and forth. Eddie finished his sorbet quickly and started eyeing Richie’s triple-scoop monstrocity enviously. 

“You want some?” Richie offered, holding out the precariously balanced ice cream cone carelessly. 

“Fuck no. All of the flavors are melting into each other so it probably tastes awful now. Plus, it’s covered in your spit.”

“That never stopped you when we were kids.”

“When we were kids we were depending on allowance and any spare change we could find underneath furniture. I have a job now, if I want more ice cream I can just go buy it. I’m an adult.”

“So that means you hate having fun now? Come on, at least try the butterscotch. I know that’s one of your favorites.”

Eddie hesitated. “Fine, if that will get you to shut up.” Richie hold out the cone again and Eddie takes a small taste from the butterscotch scoop. “Okay, it is pretty good, I admit it. Are you happy now? You probably just gave me meningitis.”

For a few seconds, all Richie can think about is the fact that there is almost definitely some of his saliva in Eddie’s mouth. An indirect kiss. Except that he shouldn’t fucking care about that because he’s not an eighth grader. But on the other hand, now that he knows Eddie’s sexuality is such a sensitive topic for him it’s not like Richie can just spring an actual kiss on him or ask him out on a date the way he’s been imagining. Doing that out of nowhere could make Eddie feel like shit, which is the last thing Richie wants. If Eddie isn’t ready to deal with his sexuality it would be inconsiderate of Richie to do something that would make him have to confront it all of the sudden. Hearing that Eddie had a childhood crush makes him agonizingly hopeful that the boy Eddie liked might have been him. That Eddie might  _ still  _ like him. That one day he could take Eddie back to this ice cream parlour and pay the lady behind the counter to hide a ring in the butterscotch ice cream and actually that sounded like a really impractical way to try and propose to someone and Richie was getting way ahead of himself here but jesus christ, Eddie Kaspbrak was perfect and there was a chance that, just maybe Richie could end up with him as long as he was considerate and took things slow and didn’t do anything stupid. 

_ I am happy now, Eds,  _ Richie thought.  _ I really, really am. _

 

Richie’s plan to woo Eddie Kaspbrak at a slow and comfortable pace carried on without incident for three and a half weeks. Stanley Uris spent those weeks expecting a panicked phone call from Richie any moment. Like almost everything that involved Richie, it was only a matter of time until something went terribly wrong. But for three and a half week, everything went smoothly. Eddie worked at a bookstore during the day and drove for Uber on weekend nights. Richie waited tables at a steakhouse. Since he was newer, he got stuck with a lot of lunch shifts, which meant less money, but he didn’t mind. He was charismatic enough to get good tips from most of the people he served and was making enough to pay all of his expenses with enough left over to enjoy himself. He was looking to get a job with the local radio station once they had an opening, but he was content where he was for the time being. He liked getting home before Eddie. There was something sappy and domestic about being able to make dinner for his crush. He wasn’t the best cook by any means, but he’d gotten some books on it from the library and even Eddie had begrudgingly admitted that he was improving. Eddie had a tendency to over work himself, so Richie didn’t always get to see him as much as he’d like to, but they both seemed happy when they were together. 

They’d have movie marathons or play video games together or go for walks, or sometimes even just hang out in one of their rooms and talk late into the night. Some nights Eddie would fall asleep while they were hanging out and Richie would lay down beside him and listen to his breathing until he fell asleep, too. Those were Richie’s favorite times. He’d smile down at Eddie, admiring how peaceful he looked and falling in love with the soft sounds of his breathing. He’d whisper, ‘I love you, Eds,’ before giving him a brief peck on the forehead and joining him in sleep. He let himself hope that someday they’d sleep in the same bed every night. But when Eddie was awake, he was careful not to push things too far. He would stand close but not too close. When he hugged Eddie he was careful not to linger as long as he wanted to, and when he found and excuse to grab Eddie’s hand he always made himself let go sooner than he’d like. He was determined to not make a move until it seemed like Eddie was ready. The last thing he wanted was to do something too forward and bring up all the shame and fear he’d seen in Eddie when he’d talked about his sexuality in the car. If he and Eddie ended up together, he didn’t want Eddie to be scared of his own feelings. 

Richie wanted to believe Eddie liked him back. Every time he relayed his hopes to Stan, he got a ten minute lecture about how Eddie either had to be crazy or crazy about Richie to spend so much time with him and laugh at his jokes and play with Richie’s hair when they sat on the couch together. One time, they facetimed Stan and Patty and afterward Stan texted him that if Eddie didn’t see the way Richie was constantly looking at him that he needed thicker glasses than Richie did. Stan said that if they ever went on a double date everyone would think that Richie and Eddie were the ones who were engaged. Richie hid his face in his hands after hearing that. He tried to not think about getting engaged to Eddie, but everytime he tried to imagine how to ask him out it morphed into a marriage proposal at the end. Like, ‘Hey, Eddie, want to catch a movie this friday? I’ll pay, and maybe we can hold hands during the end credits and also, do you want to spend the rest of your life with me?’

Eddie Kaspbrak was going to be the death of him. It scared him how much he’d be willing to give up to be with Eddie. Or, if he couldn’t be with him, then just to keep Eddie happy, even. Richie’s happiness felt inextricably bound to Eddie’s. Anything that Eddie wanted, Richie wanted for him and he was constantly brainstorming on how to help him get it.

On the night that Richie messed things up, Richie had made chicken curry with marginal success and was scrolling through twitter on his phone when Eddie came in looking like he’d just burst out of a grave. 

“Shit, Eds, what happened?”

Eddie leaned against the door after closing it. “Just-- if I have to pick up another person who’s so drunk that I can’t tell whether I should take them we’re they’re asking to go or if I’m legally obligated to drop them at the hospital I’m going to scream. I know it’s a good thing they’re not trying to drive, I’m not convinced the guy I had tonight would have been able to figure out how to put keys into an ignition, but I’m still glad he didn’t  _ try  _ to drive, but this is the third fucking time someone has thrown up in my car. I just don’t understand why anyone would every willingly get that drunk unless they were trying to give themselves alcohol poisoning and I know this should be the least of my worries as far as the unhealthy drinking culture of college students but the drunk ones never fucking tip me.” 

Richie puts his phone in his pocket and stands up from the couch. “I’m sorry, Eddie. If you want I can clean the puke out of your car for you.”

“I already got it. It’s fine. It’s fucking nothing. I just work retail and drive for a goddamn cellphone app because I have a shitty online degree in business that I have no clue what to do with and everything’s fine and I didn’t waste college studying something I don’t care about because my mom told me to and everything is fucking fine.”

“Hey, just try and breathe, Eddie,” Richie rests a hand on Eddie’s arm. “Do you need you inhaler?”

Eddie takes his arm away. “I  _ never _ fucking need it Richie! I never have! I just let her convince me I did, I let my mom convince me that all these things were wrong with me, but the only thing that’s actually wrong is that I’m a goddamn headcase.”

“You’re not a headcase. You’re a little anxious-- well, maybe more than a  _ little _ , but that’s okay. Stan has a lot of anxiety like you do, but he’s learning to manage it and I know you can, too. And if you don’t like your job, you might not be able to quit it right away, but we can work on changing it. I can help you find something better.”

“Yeah, cause everyone’s dying to hire someone who has an online degree in something he doesn’t give a shit about.”

“Eddie, if you want to go back to school, you can. I can pay more of the rent so that you can save up for tuition, and you can forget all about business and study something completely different.”

“Like  _ what _ ?” 

“Like whatever you want, Eddie. It’s your life. Do what makes you happy. You don’t live with your mom anymore and as long as I can help it you never will again. She can’t control you anymore. You can do whatever you want.” Richie took a half-step closer. 

“What if I can’t, Rich? She’s not physically near me anymore, but she lives in my fucking head. I swear I can hear her talking to me sometimes. Telling me how sick I am, or how sick I’m going to be if I don’t listen. She’s still keeping me from doing the things that I want. She’s keeping me from being the person that I want to be,” Eddie pauses, shrinking into himself and not meeting Richie’s eyes. “She’s keeping me from being with the person I want to be with.”

_ You, Richie. He’s talking about you. He has to be.  _ And Richie would be over the moon with the realization if he wasn’t watching the boy he loved fall apart right in front of him. Eddie wasn’t crying, but somehow that made it even worse. “Come here,” Richie said, coming closer. 

Eddie tried to step back but he was trapped against the door. “Richie, I know you want to help, but I don’t think you can fix this. I don’t think anyone can. I’ve tried not to do what she wants my whole life and I haven’t been able to.”

“Eddie, do you remember when you broke your arm?”

“I remember that Henry Bowers broke it because he was mad about the time we got into a rock fight with him and his friends.” Then, he seemed to brighten the slightest bit. “And I remember that I had to watch you like a hawk when you signed my cast to make sure you didn’t draw a dick on it.”

“Fair, that’s definitely something I would’ve done if given the opportunity. But I was more talking about how you stood up to your mom after that happened. She blamed your friends, remember? She never wanted you to see any one of us ever again and you told her to fuck right off.”

“Yeah, but I had to do that. And it’s not like I won. She only let me see you guys cause I said I’d stop using my inhaler otherwise. So I kept using it and I still keep one on me even now even though I know they don’t do anything. And it’s not like I stood up to her for my own sake. The only reason I could do it was because I was doing it for you guys.”

“Well what if you did it for us again? I know we’re not all here yet, but Stan and I have been working on tracking down the rest of the old gang. Bill’s apparently a published author now and Beverly has a really successful etsy shop where she sells clothes that she designed. Stan’s gonna invite us all to his wedding. It’s gonna be a little loser’s club reunion.”

Eddie smiled, but it was a regretful, faint shadow of what hope might be. “It’s not like it was back then, Richie. We’re grown ups. We still love our friends, but they aren’t the whole world anymore.”

“You get to decide what means the world and what doesn’t.”

“I can’t unlearn everything she told me just because you want me to.”

Richie tried to choose his words carefully. “Do  _ you  _ want to, Eddie?”

Eddie stayed silent.

Richie, against his better instincts, got even more into Eddie’s space. He put to fingers under Eddie’s chin, gently guiding his face back to meet Richie’s. Their eyes met. Eddie’s were a little red, a little watery. Richie can feel the warmth of Eddie’s breath. “Eddie, I just want you to be happy.”

Eddie’s eyes flick down Richie’s face, then back up. “I don’t think that’s the only thing you want.” 

And, dear god, Richie Tozier thinks that if he doesn’t kiss Eddie kaspbrak in that exact moment it might kill him. But then the protests come.  _ You can’t-- he looks like he’s about to cry, asshole. He’s obviously not ready, you’re going to-- _

The protests came to an abrupt halt as Richie realized that he and Eddie were kissing. He didn’t stop to wonder how it happened-- if he had leaned in without noticing-- because he was just so overwhelmingly glad that it was finally happening. And Eddie’s lips were soft, and thin but not too thin, and his breath tasted like tic tacs and there was definitely some of Richie Tozier’s saliva inside of Eddie Kaspbrak’s mouth and it was fucking wonderful.

And then it was over and Eddie’s eyes were wide and Richie’s mouth was hanging open and he must’ve looked like an idiot. And Eddie just looked scared.

“Eds. Eds, I-- I’m sorry, I didn’t mean. I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

Eddie inhaled. Exhaled. “I-- I need to go for a drive.” He reaches for a the door knob behind him.

“Eddie, no,  _ please _ don’t,” Richie said, catching him by the arm.

“It’s fine, Richie. I’ll be fine. I just need to think I just need to go think for like an hour and then it’ll all be okay, I swear.”

“You just need air? That’s it? You’ll just drive around a little and you won’t do anything stupid?”

“Yes, I promise. But I need to go  _ now,  _ like right now before I start freaking out and get stuck.”

Richie let go of his arm even though it was the last thing he wanted to do. “Okay,” he said.

And without one more word between them, Eddie let himself back out and closed the door behind him.

 

For the first fifteen minutes, Richie layed on the couch and stared at the ceiling. He did not cry or think or curl up in a fetal position. He just studied the texture of the paint. There was very little texture. He spends the next twenty minutes arguing with himself over whether to call Stan. On the one hand, Stan is always there for him and knows how to be reassuring, on the other, Richie will just feel bitter about how perfect Stan and Patty are together. Because he  _ thought  _ he and Eddie might be perfect for each other. He thought that, when the time was right he could kiss Eddie without sending him running for the hills. Except the time wasn’t right, was it? He’d done it too soon. He’d ruined everything. So he spent the next 25 minutes freaking out about how he’d obliterated his relationship with his best friend in one stupid and ultimately fatal misstep. He tried to think of the best way to plead for Eddie’s forgiveness, but any potential apology just turned into him elaborating endlessly on how painfully stupid he was. Then he checked the clock and saw that it had been and hour already. 

His heart turned cold with worry. What if something had happened? What if Eddie had been lying when he said he just wanted to go think? What if he’d planned to hurt himself the whole time, and Richie, like an idiot, had let him walk out the door? That couldn’t happen. That  _ couldn’t happen,  _ Richie had to call him right now-- but he couldn’t, because what if he was still driving and the sound of Richie calling him distracted him from the road and he got into a crash and it was all Richie’s fault? And maybe, Stan and Eddie weren’t the only ones with anxiety. Richie spent seven minutes agonizing over every heartbreaking possibility-- but then, just before he’d had enough and decided to call Eddie and damn the consequences, he was interrupted by the sound of Eddie coming back into their apartment.

Richie bolted over, stopping just short of a hug.

“Christ, Richie, I’m sorry. I really did just need fresh air to think, I didn’t mean to make you worry.”

“Worry? Who’s worrying? I’m fine. I’m great, actually.”

Eddie didn’t look the slightest bit convinced. “Are you sure?”

“Positive,” Richie lied. “So, uh, what’d you think about, exactly?” He wanted to get the worst of it over with.

Eddie went over to the couch and sat down. When Richie didn’t follow he patted the seat next to him, an invitation. When Richie sat down, he said, “I think you’re right about going back to school. I was thinking I could take some time and save up while I decide what I want to do. Maybe nursing, or something to do with cars. I always liked trying to fix up cars and I wouldn’t have to be around germs all the time like I would if I did nursing, you know?”

Richie smiled. “Yeah, that sounds great, Eddie. I think you should just do whatever you think will make you happiest.”

“I thought about more than just school, you know.” Eddie said.

“Yeah?” Richie said flatly.  _ Just say it already. Let me down gently. _

“It was sort of hard to think about school, actually. I was really distracted. Cause, we sort of, you know, kissed, and that freaked me out.”

“I know Eddie. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t’ve--”

“Let me finish, Trashmouth,” he said, not unkindly. “I thought about it a lot. The idea that it happened really shook me up. The idea that it might happen again scared me. But, I kind of realized that the only thing that scared me more than the idea of kissing you again was the idea of never kissing you again, and I knew I had things figured out.”

“A-are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

“Richie, is there any chance you’d want to go out on a date with me?”

“I-- you can’t do that. I’ve been trying to think of the best way to woo you for like, over a month--”

“You were trying to  _ woo  _ me?”

“Yes, shut up you asshole! I was being so considerate! I-- I cooked for you, and like we were taking things slow, cause you’re a special guy; I was ready to hand-holding for marriage, and then you just show up and ask to flaunt me to the world and try to  _ seduce  _ me with the fact that your lips are never chapped--”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa who said anything about marriage? I asked for one date, that I was gonna spend, like, twenty dollars on, tops, and you think we’re ready for holy matrimony?”

“Well, yeah. I’m not a floozy, Eddie, I don’t just go around kissing people I don’t plan on spending the rest of my life with.”

“Is that so?” Eddie said. He had one eyebrow slightly raised above the other and he looked adorable, as well as extremely pleased with himself.

“Shut up,” Richie could feel all of his face turn red.

“Well, how about we see how our first date goes before you try to propose to me, okay?”

“No, I’m not going on any dates with you, I hate you now.”

“So if I tried to kiss you right now, you’d pull away?”

“Yes. Definitely,”he lied.

Eddie kissed him then, and Richie could feel the smug turn of Eddie’s lips when Richie didn’t pull away. The next weekend, the pair went on their first date together. Miraculously, Richie managed to get all the way through it without dropping to one knee and begging Eddie to run away and elope with him right then and there. There were a few close calls, though.


End file.
